LECTURES ON THE HISTORY 



OF THE 

EASTERN CHURCH 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION ON 
THE STUDY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. 

DEAN OF WESTMINSTER 

NEW EDITION 
WITH PLANS 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1900 



I 1 \ 



PREFACE 



The Introduction to this volume consists of three 
Lectures delivered in the spring of 1857, when I entered 
upon my duties as Professor of Ecclesiastical History. 
They are reprinted, partly for the sake of presenting them 
in a more correct form than that in which they first ap- 
peared, partly for the sake of exhibiting the general plan 
under which will be comprised any special Lectures like 
those which form the bulk of the present volume. 

It is my hope, 1 if I may look so far forward into the 
future, to fill up two of the departments indicated in the 
sketch of the first Introductory Lecture. I have already 
devoted a large share of each Academical year to Lectures 
on the History of the Jewish Church, which I trust at no 
very distant period to publish ; and it is my intention to 
appropriate at least a portion of my remaining time to 
the History of the Church of England. 

Meanwhile, it seemed to me that a course of instruction 
in the History of the Eastern Church would not be un- 
fitting. The general^reasons for this selection are given in 
the Lectures themselves. The subject is one in which 
I had long felt an interest, and which may, perhaps, gain 
from being approached through a point of view more 
general than that usually taken in the learned works that 
have been devoted to its consideration. 



* The change from an Oxford Pro- 
fessorship to the Deanery of Westmin- 
ster in 1863, necessarily cut short these 



plans. But I do not abandon the hope 
of eventually carrying them out. 1869. 



PREFACE. 



In the choice and the treatment of the epochs of 

Eastern History which appear in the following pages, I 
have been guided by the necessities of the case, as well 
as by the wish to exemplify some of the principles laid 
down in my Introductory Lectures. The form of Lectures 1 
lent itself to this mode of handling the subject ; and, if the 
result should bear the appearance of a didactic rather 
than of a historical work, I have endeavoured to rectify 
this defect by the references to authorities which begin, 
and by the chronological tables which end, the volume. 

It so happens that one of these epochs (the Council 
of Nicaea), though receiving much attention from French 
and German writers, has never been thoroughly described 
by any English historian. In this instance, therefore, I 
have gone into every detail. I take this opportunity of 
mentioning some of the subordinate topics to which allu- 
sions have been made throughout the Lectures, and which 
might well be followed up, in a supplemental volume on 
the Church of Constantinople and Greece, properly so 
called. The Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon have 
never, as far as I know, been described with all the details 
which could be given. The life of Chrysostom has never 
been fully told. The Iconoclastic controversy is full of 
interest for the history both of art and religion. A full 
account has yet to be given of the rupture between the 
Greek and Latin Churches, and of the attempted recon- 
ciliation in the Council of Florence. The rise of the 
monastic community of Athos, and of the dispute on the 
Light of Tabor, forms a separate episode. The revival of 
the national church of Greece contains many germs of hope 
for the future. A continuous history of Greek theology, 
from its peculiarities in the Eastern Fathers of the third 
and fourth centuries, through the schools of Constantinople, 



1 Most of the Lectures are printed 
(with necessary corrections and abbre- 
viations) as they were delivered. The 



First and Eighth are condensed from two 
courses of Lectures. 



PREFACE. 



[5] 



down to its last great effort in the revival of letters in the 
West, and its influence on the Cambridge Platonic divines 
of the Church of England, and, through them, on John 
Wesley, in the eighteenth century, is still, I believe, a 
desideratum. 

In regard to the relation of Christianity to the other 
religions of the East, which must be considered as one 
of the most important branches of the subject in connec- 
tion with the fortunes of Eastern Christendom, I have been 
restrained, by my personal ignorance of the languages and 
customs of most of those countries, from offering more than 
a few general remarks on the one most directly connected 
with the Christian Church and the Eastern branch of it, 
namely, Mahometanism. But, if I may be permitted to 
refer to the labours of the eminent scholar who has already 
done so much for elucidating in this country the nature of 
Oriental religions, it is to be hoped that Professor Max 
Miiller may be induced to give us the benefit of his genius 
and learning in drawing forth the mutual relations of the 
religions of Asia and the Christian faith to each other, in 
their past history and in their future prospects. 

The Lectures on the Russian Church are intended as 
an introduction to a sphere of history which probably will, 
in each succeeding generation, grow in importance. If this 
volume should fall into the hands of any of those Russians 
whose hospitality I enjoyed during my stay at Moscow in 
1857, I trust that they will pardon, not only the inaccuracies 
in detail which a stranger can hardly escape, but the diver- 
gence of the general point of view from which a western 
European must regard the Church and State of Russia. 
There is an expressive proverb written over the house of 
Archbishop Plato in the forests of the Troitza Convent — 
' Let not him who comes in here carry out the dirt that he 
* finds within.' If this precept is not altogether practicable 
for an impartial traveller, I can yet truly say that my chief 
impressions are those of gratitude for the intelligence and 



PREFACE. 



courtesy with which I was received, both among laymen and 
ecclesiastics. It is a pleasure to me to hope that those kind 
friends at Moscow, to whom I would especially commend 
this part of my volume, may receive it as a token of sincere 
hope and good will for their country in this great crisis of 
its social existence, and its entrance on the thousandth 
anniversary of the foundation of their Empire. 

Christ Church, Oxford: 
March 6, 1861. 



PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION. 

I would add to the authorities mentioned in the earlier 
Preface and in the Fourth Lecture the interesting Bio- 
graphy of Chrysostom by the Rev. W. W. Stephens, the 
two learned Dissertations of the Rev. F. J. A. Hort, 
and the elaborate work of Professor Swainson on the 
Creeds. 

The Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Lectures on 
the Russian Church might have received many additional 
illustrations from my visit to Russia in 1874 ; but, as the 
general impression derived from my earlier visit in 1857 
remains unchanged, I have thought it best to leave the 
Lectures unaltered. 

Deanery, Westminster: 1876. . 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 
I. 

THE PROVINCE OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

PAGE 

Description of Ecclesiastical History . . . . . [17] 

I. Its first beginning [l8] 

The History of Israel, the first period of the History 

of the Church [19] 

Its peculiar interest [20] 

Its religious importance [21] 

II. The History of Christendom, the second period of 

the History of the Church [23] 

Relations of Civil and Ecclesiastical History . . [24] 

Points of contact between them . . . [27] 

Points of divergence ..... [28] 

Stages of the History of the Christian Church . . [30] 

1. The Transition from the Church of the Apostles 

to the Church of the Fathers . . . [30] 

2. The Conversion of the Empire. The Eastern 

Church [32] 

3. The Invasion of the Barbarians. The Latin 

Church [32] 

4. The Reformation ...... [33] 

The French, German, and English Churches . [35, 36] 

Conclusion. The late Professor Hussey . . . .[36,37] 

General Chronological Table of the Periods of Church History . [38] 

II. 

THE STUDY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

Dryness of Ecclesiastical History . ... [39] 

Remedy to be found in a Historical View of the Church . [39] 

I. History of Doctrines ....... [40] 

II. History of Creeds and Articles ..... [41] 

III. History of Events and Persons [42] 

General Study . . . . , » , . [42] 



[8] 



CONTENTS. 



Detailed Study of Great Events .... 

The Councils ...... 

Detailed Study of Great Men .... 

Nea.nder and his History . . j 
Distinction of Characters .... 

Uses of this Method : 

I. Gradation of Importance in Ecclesiastical 

Matters 

II. Combination of Civil and Ecclesiastical 
History 

III. Caution against partiality 

IV. Reference to Original Authorities 

Graves of the Covenanters . . 
The Catacombs 
Special Opportunities for this Study : 
I. In the Church of England 
II. In the University of Oxford 
III. In active Clerical Life .... 
Conclusion . . . . " . . 



III. 

THE ADVANTAGES OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

I. Importance of Historical Facts in Theological Study . 
II. Importance of a General View of Ecclesiastical History 

III. Use of the Biography of Good Men .... 

IV. Use of the General Authority of the Church 

V. Better understanding of Differences and of Unity 
VI. Evidence rendered to the Truth of Christianity . 
VII. Lessons from the Failings of the Church 
VIII. Comparison of Ecclesiastical History with the Scriptures 
IX. Future Prospect of the History of the Church 

Indications in History ...... 

Indications in Scripture ...... 

Conclusion 



PAGE 

[43] 
[431 
[44] 
[44] 
[46] 



[47] 

[48J 
[48] 
[5o] 
[5i] 
[52] 

[53] 
[54] 
[55] 
[56] 



[58] 
[60] 
[62] 

[63] 
[66] 

[67] 
[68] 
[68] 
[7i] 
[73] 
[74] 
[75] 



LECTURE I. 

THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



Authorities for its History . [78] 

I. Its General Divisions ....... 2 — 20 

I. The National Churches of the remote East . . 4 — 1 3 

a) Chaldaean or Nestorian Churches ... 5 

Christians of S. Thomas ... 6 

b) The Armenians 6 

c) The Syrians 7 

Jacobites — Maronites . . . . 7, 8 

d) The Copts 8—10 

The Abyssinian Church . . . 10 — 12 

e) The Georgians 12 



CONTENTS. 



[9] 



2, The Greek Church 

Representative of Ancient Greece 

Of early Greek Christianity 

Of the Byzantine Empire 
Constantinople 
Church of Greece 

3. Northern Tribes 

a) Danubian Provinces. — Bulgaria. — Servia. — 

Wallachia and Moldavia. — The Raitzen 

b) The Church of Russia 
II. Historical Epochs 

1. Period of the Councils .... 

2. Rise of Mahometanism .... 

3. Rise of the Russian Empire 

III. General Characteristics ..... 

1. Speculative tendency of Eastern Theology 
Rhetorical as opposed to logical 
Philosophical as opposed to legal . 

2. Speculative tendency of Eastern Monachism 

3. The Eastern Church stationary 

In the Doctrine of the Sacraments 

Baptism ..... 
Confirmation .... 
Extreme Unction 

Infant Communion . . 

4. Absence of Religious Art in the East 

5. The Eastern Church not Missionary 

But not persecuting 

6. Eastern Theology not systematised 

7. Eastern Hierarchy not organised 

Independence of Laity 
Study of Scripture 
Absence of a Papacy 
Married Clergy 

IV. Advantages of a Study of the Eastern Church 

1. Its Isolation from Western Controversy 

2. Its Competition with the Latin Church 

3. Its Illustrations of the Unity of Western Christendom 

4. Its Advantages over the Western Church 

5. Its Use to the Church of England . 
Note on the Doctrine of the Single and Double Procession 



LECTURE II. 

THE COUNCIL OF NIC^A, A.D. 325. 

Authorities for the History ....... 52 

I. The Oriental Character of the Council . . . . 55, 56 

II. Its general Interest 57— 59 

I. Historical Importance of Arianism .... 59 



CONTENTS. 



III. 



2. Importance of the Period . . . . 

The Nicene Council the first example of a General 
Council ..... 

a) In its Deliberative Character 

b) In its Imperial Character 

c) In its Mixed Character 
Peculiarities of the History . 

1. Contemporary Sources . 

2. Sources on both Sides . 

3. The Legends 

4. The Characters 



PAGE 

62 



74- 



LECTURE III. 

THE MEETING OF THE COUNCIL. 



The present appearance of Nicsea 



II. 



III. 
IV. 



V. 



The Occasion of the Council 

1. The Arian Controversy . 

Its abstract Dogmatism 
Its Polytheistic Tendencies 
Its Vehemence 

2. Intervention of the Emperor . 
The Selection of the Place . 

Its Situation .... 

Its Name ..... 
The Time of the Council 
Its Assemblage .... 

Mode of travelling 

Numbers ..... 
Diversity of Characters . 
First Place of Meeting . 

1. Alexandrian Deputies 

Alexander . 
Athanasius . 
Arius 

Coptic Hermits 

2. Syrian and Assyrian Deputies 

Eustathius of Antioch . 
Eusebius of Caesarea 
Macarius of Jerusalem . 
Deputies from Mesopotamia and Armenia 

3. Deputies from Asia Minor and Greece 

Leontius of Caesarea 
Eusebius of Nicomedia . 
Alexander of Byzantium 
Acesius the Novatian . 
Marcellus of Ancyra 
Spyridion 

Nicolas . . • 



CONTENTS. 



PAGB 



4. Deputies from the West 103 

Theophilus the Goth 104 

The Roman Presbyters 104 

Hosius of Cordova . . . . , 105 

VI. Preliminary Discussions 106 

The Theologians and the Layman .... 107 

The Philosopher and the Peasant .... 107 

Principle of Free Discussion 109 



LECTURE IV. 

THE OPENING OF THE COUNCIL. 

Arrival of the Emperor 112 

Complaints of the Bishops 1 12 

Hall of Assembly 113 

Entrance of Constantine 114 

The President 117 

His Speech 118 

The formal Opening . . . 119 

The Rebuke to the Bishops 1 21 

Theological Divisions . . . . . . . , 122 

The Thalia and Creed of Arius 124 

Legend of S. Nicolas 1 24 

Creed of Eusebius of Csesarea 126 

The Homoousin . . 128 

The Controversy on ousia and hypostasis . . . . 131 

Creed of Nicaea 132 

The Subscription of Eusebius of Caesarea . . . . 135 

of Eusebius of Nicomedia . . . . 136 

Banishment of Arius 138 

Finality of Nicene Creed ....... 140 

Broken at Chalcedon , 142 



LECTURE V. 

THE CONCLUSION OF THE COUNCIL. 
I. The Paschal Controversy 

1. Decree of Settlement 

2. Paschal Table . 

3. Festal Letters of Alexandria . 
II. The Melitian Controversy 

III. The Canons 

Apocryphal Canons 
Reception of the Book of Judith 
Twenty Genuine Canons 
I. On Clerical Disi ipline . 

On Provincial Councils 
On Episcopal Ordination . 
On Metropolitan Privileges 
On Jerusalem and Csesaiea 



[12] 



CONTENTS. 



Women 



On Translation 
On the Power of Deacons 
On Public Worship 
On Clerical Manners 

Intercourse with religious 
Protest of Paphnutius 
On cases of Conscience . 
Amnesty 

Official Letters and final Subscription 
Legends ..... 
Imperial Banquet 
Rebuke to Acesius 
Farewell of the Emperor 
Honours paid to Nicsea 
Departure of the Bishops 
Reception of the Decrees 
Legends of Rome and Constantinople 
General Conclusion : 

1. Diversity of incidents 

2. Effect of Individual Characters 

3. Contrast of Legendary and Historical Accounts 

4. Settlement of Theological Controversies 



PAGE 

158 
159 
159 
[60, 161 
160 
160 
162 
163 
163 
163, 164 
164 
166 
166 
168 
168 
168 
169 



LECTURE VI. 

THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. A.D. 312 — 338. 

Historical Position of Constantine 

His Appearance . 

His Character . 

I. The First Christian Emperor ... 
His Conversion ...... 

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge 
His ambiguous Religion .... 

His Christian Legislation .... 

Founder of the Established Church 

His Devotion and Preaching 
His last Visit to Rome ..... 

Crimes of the Imperial Family . 

1. Foundation of the Papal Power at Rome 

Absolution of Hosius 

of Sylvester 
Donation ..... 

2. Foundation of Constantinople 

Its Situation .... 
Its Importance in Ecclesiastical History 

3. Foundation of the Holy Places in Palestine 

Pilgrimage of Helena . 

4. Restoration of Arius .... 
Baptism and Death of Constantine 



II. 
III. 



176 
178 
179 

179 
180 
183 
183 
186 
187 
188, 189 



200, 201 
202 
202 
203 
205 — 208 



CONTENTS. 



[13] 



LECTURE VII. 

ATHANASIUS. A.D. 312— 372. 

PAGE 

I. Athanasius, as representing the Church of Egypt . . 213 

His Appearance 213 

His Childhood 214 

Archdeacon of Alexandria . . . . . . 215 

Consecration as Bishop ... . . . . 215 

Importance of the See of Alexandria . . . . 216 

1. Conversion of Abyssinia . . . . . 218 

2. Egyptian Hermits ...... 219 

3. National feeling of Egypt ..... 220 
j Scene of Athanasius s return to Alexandria . 222 

II. Contests of Athanasius with the Emperor . . . 223 

His Isolation, ' contra mundnm' > .... 223 

1. Independence against the Imperial Power . . 226 

2. Personal, not Ecclesiastical, Opposition . . 227 

3. Arian Persecution ...... 227 

Scene in the Church of S. Theonas . . 228 

His General Character ...... 229 

His Versatility ........ 230 

His Humour ........ 230 

Magical Reputation ....... 232 

III. Athanasius is a Theologian ...... 234 

1. Common to East and West .... 234 
Athanasian Creed ...... 235 

2. Founder of Orthodoxy ..... 235 
Polemical Vehemence ..... 236 
Defence of the Doctrine of the Incarnation . . 237 

3. Discrimination of essential and unessential . . 239 

In the Monastic Disputes . . . . 240 

In Clerical Discipline ..... 240 

In the Use and Disuse of the Homoousin . 240 
In the Controversy respecting ' Person ' and 

' Substance 241 

Council of Alexandria ........ 242 

Relations with S. Basil . . 243 



LECTURE VIII. 

MAHOMETANISM IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE EASTERN CHURCH. 

Prefatory Remarks on our Knowledge of Mahometanism 246, 247 
I. Its Connection with Western Churches .... 248 
II. Its Connection with Eastern Churches .... 249 
with their Rise ..... 249 
and their Ruin ..... 249 
III. Point of Contact in History . . . . . . 251 



[14] CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

1. Christians at Mecca . . . . , . 251 

2. Sergius, Monk of Bostra . . . . . 251 

3. Apocryphal Gospels . . . . . . 252 

4. Christian Doctrines and Legends . . . 252 
IV. Comparison with Sacred History ..... 253 

with Ecclesiastical History .... 254 

V. The Koran compared with the Bible .... 255 

1. Resemblances of Form 255 

2. Contrasts between them as regards 

a) Uniformity — Variety 256 

b) Narrowness — Diffusion ..... 257 

c) Purity of Text — Variations .... 259 

d) Monotony— Multiplicity 260 

e) Exclusiveness — Expansiveness .... 261 
VI. Comparison of the Ecclesiastical System of Mahometanism 

with that of the Christian Church .... 262 

1. Its Relations to Protestantism .... 262 

2. Its Relations to Catholicism .... 264 

3. Its Oriental Character . . . . . 267 

In its worse and better qualities . . 267 — 270 



LECTURE IX. 

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 

Authorities 272 

I. Importance of the Church of Russia as an Eastern Church 273 

II. Its Parallel with Western Christendom .... 275 

HI. Its National Character 276 

Periods of its History ........ 279 

Its Foundation, A. D. 988— 1250 279 

Missions of Constantinople 279 

Conversion of Russia 28 1 

1. Legendary Account — S. Andrew, S. Antony . 281, 282 

2. Historical Account 283 

Vladimir . .. . . . . . 283 

Missions to convert him .... 285 — 289 

Mission from him to Constantinople . . . 2S8 

The Church of S. Sophia 289 

Baptism of Vladimir at Chcson 291 

of the Russians at Kieff 291 

1. Influence of Constantinople 291 

2. Veneration for Sacred Pictures • • 292 

3. Effects of Authority 296 

4. Translation of the Bible into Sclavonic . • • 297 
Early Christian Princes of Russia . . . . • • 300 
Will of Vladimir Monomachus . . . • ' » • ■ 3 01 



CONTENTS. 



[15] 



LECTURE X. 

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 

PAGE 

The Middle Ages of Russia, A.D. 1250— 1613 . . . 304 

Moscow 305 

I. The Czar . . . . ',. . . . . . 306 

Cathedral of the Archangel at Moscow . . . 309 

Ivan the Terrible ....... 309 

His Position in Ecclesiastical History . . . 310 

II. The Metropolitans 314 

Their General Character . . . . . . 315 

Martyrdom of S. Philip 317 

III. The Monastic Orders . . . . . . 318 

1. The Hermits 319 

Basil —Nicholas of Plescow . . . 320 — 321 

2. The Monasteries 322 

IV. The Invasion of the Tartars, A.D 1205 — 1472 . . 323 

The Troitza Monasteiy ...... 324 

S. Sergius . 326 

Battle of the Don ....... 326 

V. The Invasion of the Poles, A.D. 1606 — 16 13 . . . 327 

Siege of the Troitza 329 

Election of the Romanoff Dynasty .... 330 



LECTURE XI. 

THE PATRIARCH NICON. 

The Eastern Reformation 333 

Nicon, his Career, a.d. 1652 — 1684 335 

I. His Appearance and Character 335 

II. His Reforms 337 — 344 

Opposition to them 345 — 347 

III. His Personal History 347 

Friendship with the Czar Alexis .... 343 

Quarrel . . . 352 

Retirement ........ 352 

Convent of the New Jerusalem .... 353 

Return 357 

Resignation 357 

Trial 358 

Exile 361 

Return 362 

Death and Funeral ...... 363, 364 



[16] 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE XII. 

PETER THE GREAT AND THE MODERN CHURCH OF RUSSIA. 

PAGE 

His Historical Importance, a.d. 1672 — 1725 . . 367, 368 
His Appearance and Character ..... 368 — 373 
His Connection with the Eastern Church .... 373 

His Religion 374— 377 

His Death-bed . . . . . . . . . 377 

His Reforms . 379 

Abolition of the Patriarchate 380 

The Rascolniks (Dissenters) 382 

The Starovers (Old Believers) 382 

Their Grievances 383 — 386 

Representatives of Old Russia 386 

Settlement at Moscow 388 

Modern State of Russian Church, A.D. 1725 — 1860 . . 389 

Demetrius of Rostoff 394 

Ambrose of Moscow 394 

Plato of Moscow 395 

Innocent of Kamtschatka 397 

Philaret of Moscow 397 

Professor at the Troitza Convent ..... 397 
Conclusion 398 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 403 

INDEX ........... 417 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Plan of the Patriarchal Cathedral of Moscow 

end of volume 

Map of the Eastern Churches 



INTRODUCTION. 



i. 

THE PROVINCE OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

When Christian the Pilgrili, in his progress towards the 
Celestial City, halted by the highway side at the Palace of 
which the name was Beautiful, he was told that ' he should 
' not depart till they had shown him the rarities of that 
' place. And first they had him into the study, where they 
' showed him records of the greatest antiquity : ' in which 
was ' the pedigree of the Lord of the hill, the Son of the 
'Ancient of Days. . . . Here also were more fully re- 
' corded the acts that he had done, and the names of many 
' hundreds that he had taken into his service ; and how he 
' had placed them in such habitations, that could neither by 
'length of days nor decays of nature be dissolved. Then 
'they read to him some of the worthy acts that some of 
' his servants had done ; as how they had subdued kingdoms, 
'wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the 
' mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the 
'edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, 
' waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of 
' the aliens. Then they read again, in another part of the 
'records of the house, how willing their Lord was to receive 
' in his favour any, even any, though they in time past had 
' offered great affronts to his person and proceedings. Here 

a 



[18] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



' also were several other histories of other famous things, of 
1 all which Christian had a view ; as of things both ancient 
'and modern, together with prophecies and predictions of 
1 things that have their certain accomplishment, both to the 
' dread and amazement of enemies, and the comfort and 
'solace of pilgrims.' 

These simple sentences from the familiar story of our 
childhood contain a true description of the subjects, method, 
and advantages of the study of Ecclesiastical History, which 
I now propose to unfold in preparation for the duties which 
I have been called to discharge. And with this object, it will 
be my endeavour in this opening Lecture to reduce to order 
the treasures which were shown to solace and cheer the 
Pilgrim on his way, by defining the limits of the province on 
which we are about to enter. 

I. First, then, where does Ecclesiastical History com- 
mence? Shall we begin with the Reformation — with the 
Beginning framework of religion with which we ourselves are 
sisficaf specially concerned? Or with the new birth of 
History. Christendom, properly so called, in the foundation 
of modern Europe ? Or with the close of the first century 
— with the age of those to whom we accord the name of our 
' Fathers 5 in the Christian faith ? In a certain sense, each 
of these periods may be taken, and by different classes of 
men always will be taken, respectively, as the boundaries of 
the history of the Church. But, if we are fixing, not merely 
the accidental limits of convenience, but the true limits in- 
volved in the nature of the subject ; if Ecclesiastical History 
means the History of the Church of God ; if that history is 
one united whole , if it cannot be understood without em- 
bracing within its range the history of the events, of the per- 
sons, of the ideas which have had the most lasting, the most 
powerful effect on every stage of its course ; we must ascend 
far higher in the stream of time than the sixteenth, or the 
fifth, or the second century, — beyond the Reformers, beyond 
the Popes, beyond the Fathers. 



I. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[19] 



.... Far in the dim distance of primeval ages, is dis- 
cerned the first figure in the long succession which has 
Call of never since been broken, — in Ur of the Chaldees, 
Abraham, tfie Patriarchal chief, followed by his train of slaves 
and retainers, surrounded by his herds of camels and asses, 
moving westward and southward, he knew not whither, — the 
first Father of the universal Church, — Abraham, the founder 
of the Chosen People, the Father of the Faithful, whose seed 
was to be as the sand upon the sea-shore, as the stars for 
multitude. 

Earlier manifestations doubtless there had been of faith 
and hope ; in other countries also than Mesopotamia or 
Palestine there were yearnings after a higher world. But 
the call of Abraham is the first beginning of a continuous 
growth ; in his character, in his migration, in his faith was 
bound up, as the Christian Apostle well describes, all that 
has since formed the substance and fibre of the history of 
the Church. 

From this point, then, we start, and from this shall be 
prepared to enter on the history of the people of Israel, as 

the true beginning and prototype of the Christian 
o^isSet 017 Church. So in old times it was ever held ; to the 
period S of Apostolic age it could not be otherwise ; even Euse- 
clfHistor^ ^ius, writing for a special purpose, is constrained to 

commence his work by going back (almost in the 
words with which I opened this Lecture) to ' records of the 
'greatest antiquity, showing the pedigree of the Son of the 
1 Ancient of Days,' both divine and human; and, in spite of 
the ever-increasing materials of later times, the elder dis- 
pensation has been included, actually or by implication, in 
some of the greatest works on Ecclesiastical History. So it 
must be in the nature of the case, however much, for the 
sake of convenience or perspicuity, we may divide and sub- 
divide what is in itself one whole. Speaking religiously, 
the history of the Christian Church can never be separated 
from the life of its Divine Founder, and that life cannot be 



[20] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



separated from the previous history, of which it was the 
culmination, the explanation, the fulfilment. Speaking 
philosophically, the history of the religious thoughts and 
feelings of Europe cannot be understood "without a full 
appreciation of the thoughts and feelings of that Semitic 
race which found their highest expression in the history of 
the Jewish nation. 

Nor is it only for the sake of a mere formal completeness 
that we must thus combine the old and the new in our 
its peculiar historical studies. Consider well what that history 
interest. j s _ — w hat a fi^it opens, what light it receives, what 
light it gives, by the mere fact of being so regarded. So far 
from being exempt from the laws of gradual progress and 
development to which the history of other nations is subject, 
it is the most remarkable exemplification of those laws. In 
no people does the history move forward in so regular a 
course, through beginning, middle, and end, as in the 
people of Israel. In none are the beginning, middle and 
end so clearly distinguished, each from each. In none has 
the beginning so natural and so impressive a preparation as 
that formed by the age of the Patriarchs. In none do the 
various stages of the history so visibly lead the way to the 
consummation, which, however truly it may be regarded as 
the opening of a new order, is yet no less truly the end of 
the old. And nowhere does the final consummation more 
touchingly linger in the close, more solemnly break away 
into new forms and new life, than in the last traces of the 
effects of the Jewish race on the Apostolic age. 

The form, too, of the sacred books of the Old Testament 
is one of all others most attractive to the historical student. 
Out of a great variety of documents, sometimes contempo- 
raneous, sometimes posthumous, sometimes regular narra- 
tives, sometimes isolated fragments, is to be constructed the 
picture of events, persons, manners, most diverse. The 
style and language of primitive abruptness, pregnant with 
meaning, are eminently suggestive. The historical annals 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[21] 



are combined with rich and constant illustration, from what 
in secular literature would be called the poets and orators of 
the nation. There is everything to stimulate research, even 
did these remains contain no more than the merely human 
interest which attaches to the records of any great and 
ancient people. 

But the sons of Israel, as we all know, are much more 
than this. They are, literally, our spiritual ancestors : their 
imagery, their poetry, their very names have de- 
impOT^ance 8 scended to us; their hopes, their prayers, their 
tion°Sith~ P samis are ours - I n thd r religious life we see the 
History 11 analogy of ours ; in gradual, painful, yet sure un- 
folding of divine truth to them, we see the likeness 
of the same light dawning slowly on the Christian Church. 
They are truly ' our ensamples.' Through the reverses, the 
imperfections, the sins of His ancient Church, we see how 
' God at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time 
' past to our fathers,' bringing out of manifold infirmity the 
highest of all blessings, as we trust that He may still, through 
like vicissitudes, to the Church of the present and to the 
Church of the future. 

Political principles, we are told, are best studied in the 
history of classical antiquity, because they are there dis- 
cussed and illustrated with a perfect abstraction from those 
particular associations which bias our judgment in modern 
and domestic instances. And so, in a still higher degree, 
in the history of the Jewish Church, we find the principles 
of all religious and ecclesiastical parties developed, not 
amidst names and events which are themselves the subjects 
of vehement controversy, but in a narrative of acknowledged 
authority, free from all the bitterness of modern watch- 
words, and yet with a completeness and variety such as 
within the same compass could be found in no modern 
church or nation. 

Reproduce this history with all the detail of which it is 
capable. Recall Abraham resting under the oak of Mamre ; 



[22] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



Joseph amidst the Egyptian monuments ; Moses under the 
cliffs of Horeb ; Joshua brandishing his outstretched spear ; 
Samuel amidst his youthful scholars ; David surrounded by 
his court and camp ; Solomon in his Eastern state ; the 
wild, romantic, solitary figure of the great Elijah ; ' the 
* goodly fellowship ' of gifted seers, lifting up their strains 
of joy or sorrow, as they have been well described, like 
some great tragic chorus, as kingdom after kingdom falls to 
ruin, as hope after hope dies and is revived again. Repre- 
sent in all their distinctness the several stages of the history, 
in its steady onward advance from Egypt to Sinai, from 
Sinai to the Jordan, from the Jordan to Jerusalem, from the 
Law to the Judges, from the Judges to the Monarchy, from 
the Monarchy to the Prophets, from the Prophets to the 
great event to which, not the Prophets only, but the yearn- 
ings of the whole nation had for ages born witness. 

Let us not fear lest our reverence should be diminished 
by finding these sacred names and high aspirations under 
the garb of Bedouin chiefs and Egyptian slaves and Oriental 
kings and Syrian patriots. The contrast of the ancient 
inward spirit with the present degraded condition of the 
same outward forms is the best indication of the source 
whence that spirit came. Let us not fear lest we should, 
by the surpassing interest of the story of the elder church, 
be tempted to forget the end to which it leads us. The 
more we study the Jewish history, the more shall we feel 
that it is but the prelude of a vaster and loftier history, with- 
out which it would be itself unmeaning. The voice of the 
old dispensation is pitched in too loud a key for the 
ears of one small people. 1 The place of the Jewish nation 
is too strait for the abode of thoughts which want a wider 
room in which to dwell. The drama, as it rolls on through 
its successive stages, is too majestic to end in anything short 
of a divine catastrophe. 

1 I am indebted for this expression to a striking sermon of Professor Archer 
Butler (vol. i. p. 210). 



I. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[23] 



This is a brief but necessary sketch of the first part of 
our subject. This is the ancient period of Ecclesiastical 
History. Its full treasures must be unfolded hereafter. Its 
accessories belong to other departments of study. The 
critical interpretation of the sacred books in which the 
history is contained falls under the province of General 
Theology and Exegesis ; the explanation of the languages 
in which they are written I gladly leave to the Professor of 
Hebrew and the Professor of Greek. But the history itself 
of the chosen people, from Abraham to the Apostles, belongs 
to this Chair by right ; 1 and, if health and strength are 
spared to me, shall also belong to it in fact. 

II. The fortunes, however, of the seed of Abraham after 
the flesh form but a small portion of the fortunes of his 
End of descendants after the spirit ; they are, as I have 
Ancient said, but the introduction to the history which 
ticai His- rises on their ruin. With the close of the Apos- 
tolic age the direct influence of the chosen people 
expires ; neither in religious nor in historical language can 
the Jewish race from this time forward be said to be charged 
with any divine message for the welfare of mankind. Indi- 
vidual instances of long endurance, of great genius, of lofty 
character, have indeed arisen amongst them in later times ; 
but, since the days when the Galilean Apostle, S. John, slept 
his last sleep under the walls of Ephesus, no son of Israel 
has ever exercised any widespread or lasting control over 
the general condition of mankind. 

We stand, therefore, at the close of the first century, 
like travellers on a mountain ridge, when the river which 
Beginning they have followed through the hills is about to 
EcdesiS" bu rst forth into the wide plain. It is the very like- 
cai History. ness Q f faaX world-famous view from the range 
of the Lebanon over the forest and city of Damascus. 



1 I believe that I am correct in History exists, the Jewish history falls 
stating that in all other European uni- within its province, 
versities, where a Chair of Ecclesiastical 



[24] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



The stream has hitherto flowed in its narrow channel, its 
course marked by the contrast which its green strip of vege- 
tation presents to the desert mountains through which it 
descends. The further we advance the more remarkable 
does the contrast become ; the mountains more bare, the 
river-bed more rich and green. At last its channel is con- 
tracted to the utmost limits ; the cliffs on each side almost 
close it in ; it breaks through and over a wide extent, far as 
the eye can reach, it scatters a flood of vegetation and life, 
in the midst of which rise the towers and domes of the 
great city, the earliest and the latest type of human grandeur 
and civilisation. 

Such is the view, backwards and forwards, and beneath 
our feet, which Ecclesiastical History presents to us, as we 
rest on the grave of the last Apostle and look over the 
coming ages of our course. The Church of God is no 
longer confined within the limits of a single nation. The 
life and the truth, concentrated up to this point within the 
narrow and unbending character of the Semitic race, have 
been enlarged into the broad, fluctuating, boundless destinies 
of the sons of Japheth. The thin stream expands and loses 
itself more and more in the vast field of the history of the 
world. The Christian Church is merely another name for 
Christendom ; and Christendom soon becomes merely an- 
other name for the most civilised, the most powerful, the 
most important nations of the modern habitable world. 

What, then, it may be asked, is the difference hence- 
Reiations of forward between Civil and Ecclesiastical History ? 
Ecdesiasti- How far are the duties of this professorship separ- 
cai History. able from those of the Chair of Modern History ? 

To a great extent, the two are inseparable ; they cannot 
be torn asunder without infinite loss to both. It is indeed 
true that, in common parlance, Ecclesiastical History is 
often confined within limits so restricted as to render such 
a distinction only too easy. Of the numerous theologica} 
terms, of which the original sense has been defaced, marred, 



L 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[25] 



and clipped by the base currency of the world, few have 
suffered so much, in few has ' the gold become so dim, the 
' most fine gold so changed,' as in the word ' ecclesiastical.' 
The substantive from which it is derived has fallen far below 
its ancient Apostolical meaning, but the adjective ' ecclesi- 
' astical ' has fallen lower still. It has come to signify, not 
the religious, not the moral, not even the social or political 
interests of the Christian community, but often the very 
opposite of these — its merely accidental, outward, cere- 
monial machinery. We call a contest for the retention or 
the abolition of vestments ' ecclesiastical,' not a contest for 
the retention or the abolition of the slave trade. We in- 
clude in ' ecclesiastical history ' the life of the most insig- 
nificant bishop or the most wicked of Popes, not the life of 
the wisest of philosophers or the most Christian of kings. 
But such a limitation is as untenable in fact as it is untrue 
in theory. The very stones of the spiritual temple cry out 
against such a profanation of the rock from which they were 
hewn. If the Christian religion be a matter, not of mint, 
anise, and cummin, but of justice, mercy, and truth : if the 
Christian Church be not a priestly caste, or a monastic 
order, or a little sect, or a handful of opinions, but ' the whole 

* congregation of faithful men, dispersed throughout the 

* world ; ' if the very word which of old represented the 
chosen ' people ' (Xa6?) is now to be found in the ' laity ; ' 
if the Biblical usage of the phrase ' Ecclesia ' literally justifies 
Tertullian's definition, Ubi tres sunt laid, ibi est ecclesia ; 
then the range of the history of the Church is as wide as 
the range of the world which it was designed to penetrate, 
as the whole body which its name includes. 

By a violent effort, no doubt, the two spheres can be kept 
apart; by a compromise, tacit or understood, the student of 
each may avoid looking the other in the face ; under special 
circumstances, the intimate relation between the course of 
Christian Society and the course of human affairs may be 
forgotten or set aside. Josephus the priest may pass over 



[26] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



in absolute silence the new sect which arises in Galilee to 
disturb the Jewish hierarchy. Tacitus the Philosopher may 
give nothing more than a momentary glance at the miser- 
able superstition of the fanatics who called themselves 
Christians. Napoleon the conqueror, when asked on the 
coast of Syria to visit the holy city, may make his haughty 
reply,— ' Jerusalem does not enter into the line of my opera- 
i tions.' But this is not the natural nor the usual course of 
the greatest examples both in ancient and modern times. 
Observe the description of the Jewish Church by the sacred 
historians. Consider the immense difference for all future 
ages, if the lives of Joshua, David, Solomon, and Elijah had 
been omitted, as unworthy of insertion, because they did not 
belong to the priestly tribe; if the Pentateuch had been con- 
fined to the Book of Leviticus ; if the books of Kings and 
Chronicles had limited themselves to the sayings and doings 
of Zadok and Abiathar, or even of Nathan and Gad. Re- 
member also the early chroniclers of Europe ; almost all of 
them at once the sole historians of their age, yet even by 
purpose and profession, historians only of the Church. Take 
but one instance, the Venerable Bede. His ' Ecclesiastical 
' History of England ' begins, not with the arrival of Augus- 
tine, but with the first dawn of British civilisation at the 
landing of Caesar; and, for the period over which it extends, 
is, even when least satisfying, almost the only authority for 
the fortunes of the Anglo-Saxon commonwealth. 

In later times, since history has become a distinct science, 
the same testimony is still borne by the highest works of 
genius and research in this wide field. Gibbon's ' Decline 
' and Fall of the Roman Empire ' is, in great part, however 
reluctantly or unconsciously, the history of ' the rise and 
' progress of the Christian Church.' His true conception of 
the grandeur of his subject extorted from him that just con- 
cession which his own natural prejudice would have refused; 
and it was remarked not many years ago, by Dr. Newman, 
that up to that time England had produced no other Eccle- 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[27] 



siastical History worthy of the name. This reproach has 
since been removed by the great work of Dean Milman; but 
it is the distinguishing excellence of that very history that it 
embraces within its vast circumference the whole story of 
mediaeval Europe. Even in that earlier period when the 
world and the Church were of necessity distinct and antago- 
nistic, Arnold rightly perceived, and all subsequent labours 
in this field tend to the same result, that each will be best 
understood when blended in the common history of the 
Empire which exercised so powerful an influence over the 
development of the Christian society within its bosom, whilst 
by that society it was itself undermined and superseded. 
And the two chief historians of France and England in re- 
cent times — Guizot in his Lectures on French Civilisation, 
Macaulay in his English History — have both strongly brought 
out, as necessary parts of their dissertations or narratives, the 
religious influences which by inferior writers of one class 
have been neglected, or by those of another class been rent 
from their natural context. 

Never let us think that we can understand the history of 
the Church apart from the history of the world, any more 
than that we can separate the interests of the clergy from the 
interests of the laity, which are the interests of the Church 
at large. 

How to adjust the relations of the two spheres to each 
other is almost as indefinite a task in history as it is in prac- 
tice and in philosophy. In no age are they pre- 
conSct°be- cisely the same. Sometimes, as in the period of 
an^Ecc'iIsi- tne R° man Empire, the influence of one on the 
Sy alHis " otner * s more by contagion, by atmosphere, even 
by contrast, than by direct intercourse. Sometimes 
the main interest of religious history hangs on an institution, 
like Episcopacy ; on a war, like the Crusades ; on a person, 
like Luther. In some periods, as in the middle ages, the 
combination of the secular and religious elements will be 
effected by the political or the intellectual influence of the 



[28] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



clergy. The lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury and the 
lives of the Prime Ministers of England are for five hundred 
years almost indivisible. The course of European revolution 
for nearly a thousand years moves round the throne of the 
Papacy. Or again, the rise of a new power or character 
will, even in these very ages, suddenly transfer the spiritual 
guidance of men to some high-minded ruler or gifted writer, 
who is for the time the true arbiter or interpreter of the in- 
terests and the feelings of Christendom. In the close of the 
thirteenth century, it is not a priest or a Pope, but a king 
and an opponent of Popes, who stands forward as the ac- 
knowledged representative of the Christian Church in Europe; 
S. Louis in France, not Gregory IX. in Rome. In the four- 
teenth century it is not a schoolman or a bishop that we 
summon before us as the best exponent of mediaeval Chris- 
tianity; it is not the ' seraphic' or the 'angelic doctor,' but 
the divine poet Dante, who reveals to us the feelings and 
thoughts of the whole age respecting this world and the next. 
And if we pass to our own country, he must be a blind 
guide who would take us through the English Reformation 
without seeing on every stage of it the impress of the iron 
will and broad aims of Henry VIII. ; or who would portray 
the English Church without recognising the comprehensive 
policy of Elizabeth. Or yet again, of all our brilliant Eng- 
lish divines of the seventeenth century, there is not one who 
can be fairly said to have exercised as much influence over 
the popular theology of this nation, as has been undoubtedly 
exercised by a half-heretic half-Puritan layman, the author 
of ' Paradise Lost' 

These instances indicate with sufficient precision the de- 
vious yet obvious path which, without losing sight 
dSwgence °f ^ e wide horizon on the one hand, or without 
between undue contraction of his view on the other, the 

Civil and ' 

Eccksiasti- student of Ecclesiastical History may safely follow. 

cal History. J J J 

If we may for a moment return to our former 
position and imagine ourselves overlooking the broad ex- 



I. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[2 9 ] 



panse into which the stream bursts forth from the moun- 
tains of its early stages, our purpose henceforth will be, not 
so much to describe the products of the forest or the buildings 
of the city which have grown up on the banks of the river, 
but to track the river itself through its various channels, 
under its overhanging thickets, through the populous streets 
and gardens to which it gives life ; to see what are its main, 
what its tributary streams : what the nature of its waters ; how 
far impregnated with new qualities, how far coloured, by the 
various soils, vegetations, uses, through which they pass; to 
trace their secret flow, as they go softly through the regions 
which they fertilise ; not finding them where they do not 
exist, not denying their power where they do exist ; to wel- 
come their sound in courses however tortuous ; to acknow- 
ledge their value however stained in their downward and 
onward passage. Difficult as it may often be to find the 
stream, yet when it is found it will guide us to the green pas- 
tures of this world's wilderness, and lead us beside the still 
waters. 

Three landmarks, at least, may be mentioned, by which 
this course of Ecclesiastical History may be distinguished 
from that of history generally. 

First, there are institutions, characters, ideas, words, which 
can be traced to the religious, especially to the Christian, 
principle in man, and to nothing besides. There are virtues 
and truths now in the world, which can only be ascribed to 
the influence of Christian society: and there are corruptions 
of those virtues and of those truths, which have produced 
crimes and errors to be ascribed also, though remotely and 
indirectly, to the same source. There are events in the com- 
mon course of history— revolutions, wars, divisions of races 
and nations— which in themselves can hardly be called reli- 
gious, but which have at least one aspect distinctly religious. 
There are also institutions, customs, ceremonies, even ves- 
tures and forms of Ritual, in which, though originally pagan 
or secular, Christian ideas have now become fixed so as to 



[30] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



be inseparable from them. All these it is the task of Eccle- 
siastical History to adjust and discriminate. 

Secondly, in every age, even the worst, there have been 
beneath the surface latent elements of religious life and of 
active goodness, which it will be our duty to bring to light, 
as the true signs of a better world beyond, and of the 
Divine Presence abiding with us even here, — a Church, as 
it were, within a Church ; a ' remnant,' to use the language 
of the older covenant. 

Thirdly, the whole history of the Church, though usually 
flowing in the tracks marked out for it by the great national 
and geographical boundaries of the world, yet has a course 
not always, and therefore not of necessity, identical with the 
channel of human civilisation. In the history of the Church 
as in that of the world, in the history of the Christian Church 
as in that of the Jewish, there is a distinct unity of parts, an 
onward progress from scene to scene, from act to act, to- 
wards an end yet distant and invisible ; a unity and a 
progress such as give consistency and point to what would 
else be a mere collection of isolated and disjointed facts, 
stages of Let us then, before we conclude, briefly notice 
of e the lstory tne successive stages through which, eventually, 
Church. our course of study must lead us, and the interest 
especially attaching to each. 

The first period is that which contains the great ques- 
i Thetran- ^ on ' a l most the greatest which Ecclesiastical 
sition from History has to answer, — How was the transition 

the Church J ' 

of the A P o- effected from the age of the Apostles to the age of 

sties to the , _ , . ° ..... r ... 

Church of the Fathers, from Christianity as we see it in the 
the Fathers. Testament,' to Christianity as we see it in the 
next century, and as, to a certain extent, we have seen it 
ever since ? 

No other change equally momentous has ever since 
affected its fortunes, yet none has ever been so silent and 
secret. The stream, in that most critical moment of its 
passage from the everlasting hills to the plain below, is lost 



I. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[31] 



to our view at the very point where we are most anxious to 
watch it ; we may hear its struggles under the overarching 
rocks ; we may catch its spray on the boughs that overlap 
its course ; but the torrent itself we see not, or see only by 
imperfect glimpses. It is not so much a period for Ecclesi- 
astical History as for ecclesiastical controversy and con- 
jecture. A fragment here, an allegory there ; romances of 
unknown authorship ; a handful of letters of which the 
genuineness of every portion is contested inch by inch ; the 
summary examination of a Roman magistrate ; the plead- 
ings of two or three Christian apologists ; customs and 
opinions in the very act of change ; last but not least, the 
faded paintings, the broken sculptures, the rude epitaphs in 
the darkness of the catacombs, — these are the scanty, though 
attractive, materials out of which the likeness of the early 
Church must be reproduced, as it was working its way, in 
the literal sense of the word, ' under ground,' under camp 
and palace, under senate and forum, — 'as unknown, yet 
' well known ; as dying, and behold it lives.' ' 

This chasm once cleared, we find ourselves approaching 
the point where the story of the Church once more becomes 
The African history — becomes once more the history, not of 
churches. an i so i a t e d community, or of isolated individuals, 
but of an organised society incorporated with the political 
systems of the world. Already, in the close of the second 
and beginning of the third century, the Churches of Africa, 
now seen for a few generations before their final disap- 
pearance, exhibit distinct characters on the scene. They 
are the stepping-stones by which we cross from the obscure 
to the clear, from chaos to order. Of these the Church of 
Carthage illustrates the rise of Christianity in the West, the 
Church of Egypt that of Christianity in the East. 

But the first great outward event of the actual history of 
the Church is its conversion of the Empire ; and, in close 
connection with this, its first wide sphere in the face of 
mankind, is the Oriental world out of which it sprang, 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



and in which the external forms of its early organisation can 
still be most clearly studied. In the usages of the ancient 
systems which have grown up on that soil — Coptic, 
Version of"" Greek, Asiatic — we may still trace the relics, the 
andSe Pire; f° ssn i se d relics, of the old Imperial Church. 1 
Eastern i n the period of the first Councils, and in some 
passages of the Byzantine Empire, the fortunes of 
the Eastern Church are identified with the fortunes of 
Christendom. 2 Its connection with the general course of 
Ecclesiastical History in subsequent times depends chiefly 
on two developments of religious life of a very different 
kind from each other, the rise of Mahometanism, 3 and the 
rise of the Church and Empire of Russia. 4 

With the exception of these three periods or stages, and 
viewed as part of the continuous history of the Church, 
Eastern Christianity must be considered but as the tem- 
porary halting-place of the great spiritual migration which, 
from the day that Abraham turned his face away from the 
rising of the sun, has been stepping steadily westward. 

Another and a wider sphere was in store for the progress 
of the Church than its own native regions ; another and a 
5 . The Latin nobler conquest than that of its old worn-out 
Church. enemy on the tottering throne of the Caesars. 
The Gothic tribes descended on the ancient world ; the 
fabric of civilised society was dissolved in the mighty crisis; 
the Fathers of modern Europe were to be moulded, sub- 
dued, educated. By whom was this great work effected ? 
Not by the Empire — it had fled to the Bosphorus ; not by 
the Eastern Church— its permanent conquests were in an- 
other direction. In the Western, Latin, Roman clergy, in 
the missionaries who went forth to Gaul, to Britain, and to 
Germany, the barbarians found their first masters : in the 
work of controlling and resisting the fierce soldiers of the 
Teutonic tribes lay the main work, the real foundation, the 



1 Lecture I. 

3 Lectures II.— VII. 



3 Lecture VIII. 

* Lectures IX. -XII. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[33] 



chief temptation of the Papacy. From the day when 
Leo III. placed the crown of the new Holy Roman German 
Empire on the head of Charlemagne, the stream of human 
progress and the stream of Christian life, with whatever 
interruptions, eddies, counter-currents, flowed during the 
next seven centuries in the same channel. As the history 
of the earlier stages revolved round the characters of the 
Fathers or of the Emperors, so the history of the middle 
ages, with all their crimes and virtues, revolved (it is at 
once the confession of their weakness and their strength) 
round the character and policy of the Popes. What good 
they did, and what good they failed to do, by what means 
they rose, and by what they fell, during that long period of 
their power, form the main questions by which their claims 
must be tested. 

And now a new revolution was at hand, almost as 
terrible in its appearance and as trying in its results as any 
The Re- tnat na d § one before. The fountains of the great 
formation. deep were a g a i n broken up. New wants and old 
evils had met together. The failure of the Crusades had 
shaken men's belief in holy places. Long abuses had 
shaken their belief in Popes, bishops, monasteries, sacra- 
ments, and saints. The revival of ancient learning had 
revealed truth under new forms. The invention of printing 
had raised up a new order of scribes, expounders, readers, 
writers, clergy. Institutions which had guided the world 
for a thousand years, now decayed and out of joint, gave 
way at the moment when they were most needed Was it 
possible that the Christian Church should meet these trials 
as it had met those which had gone before ? It had lived 
through the fall of Jerusalem ; it had lived through the ten 
persecutions ; it had lived through its amalgamation with 
the Empire ; it had lived through the invasion of the bar- 
barians : but could it live through the struggles of internal 
dissolution ? could it live through the shipwreck of the 
whole outward fabric of its existence ? could the planks of 

b 



[34] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



the vessel, scattered on the face of the raging flood, be so 
put together again as to form any shelter from the storm, 
any home on the waters ? Did the history of the Church 
come to an end, as many thought it would, when its ancient 
organisation came to an end, in the great change of the 
Reformation ? 

We know that it still lived on. That it survived at all is 
the best proof which it has yet presented of its inherent 
Protestant- vitality ; that it survived, in a purified form, is 
ism - the best pledge of its future success. To ancient 
Christianity, to Byzantine Christianity, to Roman Christi- 
anity, was now added the fourth and equally unmistakable 
form of Protestant Christianity : like the others, clothed in 
an outward shape of its own, and confining itself specially 
to distinct branches of the European family, yet also pene- 
trating with its spirit institutions and nations outwardly most 
repugnant to it. Amidst many conflicts, therefore, Ecclesi- 
astical History still continues in the general tracks that were 
opened for it in the sixteenth century. Whatever political 
troubles have agitated the world since that time, and what- 
ever changes may be fermenting in the inner heart and 
mind of the Church, none have since altered its outward 
aspect and divisions. In one respect a wide difference 
exists between the history of Christendom as it was before, 
and as it has been since, the Reformation. Henceforward 
we cannot follow its course as a whole : each country must 
have its own ecclesiastical as well as its own civil history. 
Italy, Spain, Sweden, Holland, Geneva, Scotland, — the very 
names have each, in theological language, a peculiar pathos 
and significance imparted by the Reformation. In each 
that great event awakened a different note as it traversed 
their several chords. Still there are three countries in which, 
beyond all others, the religious history of Europe has been 
specially carried on. 

It is in France that the fortunes of Christianity during 
the last three centuries have been most visibly represented 



I. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[35] 



in the brightest and in the darkest colours. The Gallican 
Church, in the seventeenth century the most brilliant in 
The French Europe, brilliant alike in its works of active mercy 
th h e U Frenc n h anc ^ m its almost Augustan age of great divines, 
Revolution. — Vincent of Paul, Bossuet, Fenelon, Pascal, — be- 
came in the eighteenth century the miserable parent, and 
then the victim, of the great convulsion which, whilst it 
shook the belief of the whole of Europe, in France for 
eleven years suppressed it altogether. The French Revolu- 
tion must always be considered as an epoch in the religious 
history of man. Not only was its hostility to the Christian 
faith the most direct that the world has seen since the days 
of Julian ; not only did it spring, in great measure, out of 
the corrupt state of the French clergy, the Church of Dubois 
and of Talleyrand ; but it possessed in itself that frightful 
energy which, as has been truly observed by its latest ex- 
ponent, 1 can only be likened to the propagation of a new 
religion — the wild fanaticism, the proselytism, the self-devo- 
tion, the crimes, as though of a Western Mahometanism — 
of what its own disciples have often called it, an imitation, 
a parody, a new, distorted edition of the Gospel. Not only 
is its history instructive as a moral warning to all existing 
Churches, and as an interpreter of the great religious storms 
of former ages, but it changed the whole external constitu- 
tion of the Church on the Continent generally, and in the 
inward sifting and trial of the religious thoughts of men, its 
effects can still now be felt, even in countries the furthest 
removed from its immediate influence. 

Germany, the seat of the original movement of the 
Reformation, has never lost the hold which it then first 
The German acquired on the reason and imagination of man- 
Church, kind. Its collective power as a Church has been 
too impalpable to attach itself to any definite course of out- 
ward events. But its individual divines have, more than 

Tocqueville : ' L'Ancien Regime et 'Thoughts on French Affairs,' vol. ir. 
la Revolution,' c. iii. Compare Burke's p. 10. (Bonn's Ed.) 

b 2 



[36] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



any others, taken the place occupied by the schoolmen of 
the middle ages. No others, within the last hundred years, 
have exercised so powerful an influence over the rest of 
Europe, as the philosophical and critical theologians of the 
German universities. 

And this leads us finally to the third great ecclesiastical 
system which stands alone and apart, yet with its own pecu- 
The church nar mission, in the general fortunes of the Western 
of England, church. At least for Englishmen, no Ecclesiastical 
History since the Reformation can be so instructive as that 
of our own Church of England. To see how, out of that 
wide shipwreck the fragments of our vessel were again 
pieced together ; how far it has realised the essential con- 
dition of the ark on the stormy waters ; how far it has con- 
tained within itself the necessary, though heterogeneous, 
elements of our national faith and character ; how far it 
may still hope to do so ; what is its connection with the 
past, what its hold upon the future ; — this is the last and 
most important task of the English ecclesiastical historian. 
The peculiar constitution of our State has borne the brunt 
and survived the shock of the French Revolution : it is 
the hope of the peculiar constitution of our Church that it 
should in like manner meet, overcome, and absorb the 
shock of the new thoughts and feelings to which directly 
or indirectly that last of European movements has given 
birth. 

I have been induced thus, at the outset, to dwell on 
this broad extent of prospect, first, because it is only by a 
just appreciation of the whole that any part can be 
one us! . p rQ p er jy understood ; and, secondly, because I 
wish to impress on my hearers the many points of contact 
which Ecclesiastical History presents to the various studies 
of this place. If at times it is impossible not to be oppressed 
with the load which has to be taken from the stores of the 
Pilgrim's Palace, it is a satisfaction to remember that there 
are many travellers passing along the same road who will, 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[37] 



almost of necessity, lighten the burden and cheer the 
journey by their common interest in the treasures borne 
away. 

One such has been before me in this path, my lamented 
predecessor. Personally, he was almost unknown to me. 
The late * n our m0( ^ Q °^ dealing with tne subject before us 
Professor we might have widely differed. But I cannot enter 
Hussey. ^ ^ s Q ^ ce w j t hout bearing my humble testimony 
to the conscientious industry with which, as I have heard 
from those who attended his Lectures, he guided them over 
the rugged way which he had chosen for them ; without 
expressing my grateful sense of the characteristic forethought 
and munificence with which he bequeathed to this Chair the 
valuable endowment of his library. Still more, I should be 
doing wrong both to him and to the University, were I not 
to dwell for a moment on what I have always understood 
was the chief ground of the respect which he commanded 
in this place. He was emphatically a 'just man he pos- 
sessed in an eminent degree that rare gift of public integrity 
and fairness too rare in the world, too rare in the Church, 
too rare in Ecclesiastical History, too rare even in great seats 
of learning, not to be noticed when it comes before us, espe- 
cially when, as in the present case, it passes away with the 
marked approbation and regret of all who witnessed it. In 
times of much angry controversy he never turned aside from 
his straightforward course to excite needless alarms. He 
never stooped 1 to win theological favour by attacking un- 
popular names. He never allowed any religious sentiment 
or fancy to interfere with his manly and severe sense of truth 
and duty. He showed that it was possible to be impartial 
without weakness, and orthodox without bitterness. May 
the University long remember that such was the character 



1 As one instance, it may suffice to 
record the remarkable Ordination sermon 
on 4 The Atonement,' preached by Pro- 
fessor Hussey in December 1855, in 
which he defended the doctrine of an 



eminent theologian, at that time the ob- 
ject of much vehement obloquy, and 
showed in guarded but decisive terms 
its substantial identity with that of the 
ancient Fathers. 



[38] 



THE PROVINCE OF 



INTROD. 



which she delighted to honour ! May his successors in this 
Chair be encouraged and enabled to act and to speak in this 
most important respect according to his example ! 



For the sake of convenience I subjoin the leading chro- 
nological divisions, which to some extent cross the histori- 
cal and geographical provisions laid down in the foregoing 
Lecture. 

I. The rise of the Christian Church, a.d. 30 — 312. 

1. The Apostolic age. 30 — 70. 

2. The transition from the Apostolic Age. 70 — 160. 

3. The Age of Persecution. 160—312. 

II. The Church of the Empire. 

The Western Church. The Eastern Church. 

1. The beginning of the 1. The age of the Eastern Coun- 
Roman Church and cils. 312 — 781. 

of Latin Theology. 2. The rise of the Greek Empire 
312 — 476. and Church. 330—1453. 

3. The rise of Mohametanism. 

622 — 732. 

4. The Rise of the Russian 

Church. 988 — 1700. 

III. The Church of the Middle Ages. 476 — 15 17. 

1. Conversion of the Barbarians. 450 — 800. 

2. The Papacy and the Crusades. 800—1300. 

3. The Western Councils and Preludes of the Refor- 

mation. 1300 — 1 5 17. 

IV. The Churches of the Reformation. 15 17 — 1789. 

1. The crisis of the Reformation. 15 17 — 1550. 

2. The wars of the Reformation. 1550 — 1660. 

3. The rise of Latitudinarianism, of Methodism, of 

Gallicanism, and of German theology. 1660 — 
1789. 

V. The French Revolution. 1789—1815. 



n. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. [39] 



II. 

THE STUDY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

It is sometimes said, that of all historical studies that of 
Ecclesiastical History is the most repulsive. We seem to be 
_ e set down in the valley of the Prophet's vision, — 

Dryness of ' r 

Ecdesiasti- strewn with bones, and behold they are ' very 
cai History. < man y^ anQ i < ver y d r y • ' skeletons of creeds, of 

churches, of institutions ; trodden and traversed by the 
feet of travellers again and again ; the scapegoat of one 
age lying lifeless by the scapegoat of the next ; craters of 
extinct volcanoes, which once filled the world with their 
noise, and are now dead and cold ; the salt shores of a 
barren sea, which throws up again dead and withered the 
branches which the river of life had cast into it full of 
beauty and verdure, — the very reverse of that green pro- 
spect which I set before you in my opening lecture ; the 
more dreary, it may be said, from the wide extent into 
which it spreads. ' How are we to give interest to such a 
' task ; how shall the healing streams penetrate into those 
* dead waters ; how shall those dry bones live ? ' 

There may be many answers to this question, but I shall 
content myself with the most obvious. Remember that of all 
Remedy to ^ ese ^ n S s ^ iere ts a history. These relics, these 
be found in institutions, these characters (take them at their 

a Historical . N . 

view of the worst), had each a part to play amongst mankind ; 
Church. t ^ e y were men 0 f fl es h an( } blood like ourselves, or 

they dwelt with men of flesh and blood like ourselves ; they 
were living human spirits, or they were the instruments of 



THE STUDY OF 



NTROD. 



living human spirits ; however decayed, however antiquated 
they may be, yet in their very age they have an interest which 
no novelty can give. We cannot, it is true, enter on Eccle- 
siastical History, whether in its wider or its narrower sense, 
with the feeling of fresh enthusiasm which inspires the dis- 
coverers of unexplored regions whether in science or history, 
'the first who ever burst into the silent sea,' or secluded 
ruins, which no eye of man has seen before. But we can 
enter upon it with the yet deeper delight which fills our 
minds as we feel rising beneath our feet the ground of the 
Seven Hills ; or as we gaze, knowing that hundreds of 
thousands have gazed before us, on the everlasting outline 
of the Pyramids. So view the history of the Church, even 
in its most lifeless and withered forms ; so view it as part 
of a whole, as once having lived, as living still in ourselves, 
as destined to live on in future generations ; so prophesy 
over its dry bones as they lie scattered and disjointed over 
the surface of the world, — and we shall soon hear ' a noise 
'and a shaking,' and 'the bones will come together,' each 
to each, and ' the breath will come into them, and they will 
1 live and stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army.' 

Let me point out how this remedy is involved in the very 
nature of the case. Take, for example, the history of doc- 
i. History trines and opinions. Many ecclesiastical histories 
of Doctrines. con t a in little else ; half of theology is taken up in 
stating them. How immensely do they gain in liveliness, 
in power, in the capacity of being understood and appreci- 
ated, if we view them through the medium of the lives ? 
characters, and circumstances of those who received and 
taught them! Trace the actual course of any opinion or 
dogma ; see the influences by which it was coloured ; com- 
pare the relative importance attached to it at one period 
and another ; ask how far the words in which it has been 
expressed convey the same or a different meaning to us or 
to our fathers; discover, if possible, its fountain-head in the 
time the country, or the person in which it first originated 



II. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[40 



Look at Augustinianism as it arose in the mind of Augustine; 
at Lutheranism as it was conceived by Luther ; at Wesley- 
anism as it was set forth by Wesley. It will cease to be a 
phantom, it will speak to us as a man: if it is an enemy, we 
shall slay it more easily; if a friend, we shall embrace it 
more warmly. 

Still more is this the case with the kindred subject of 
Confessions and Articles of Faith. If we regard them 
merely in their cut and dried results, they may in- 
of Creeds deed serve many useful ends ; they supply stakes 
and Articles. tQ ma k e hedges against intruders, planks to cross 
our enemy's trenches, faggots to burn heretics. But go to the 
soil from which they sprang. Watch them in their wild, 
native, luxuriant growth. Observe the moss which has 
grown over their stems, the bough rent away there and 
grafted in here, the branches inextricably intertwined with 
adjacent thickets. So regarded, they will not be less, but 
more, of a shelter; we shall not value them the less for un- 
derstanding them better. Figure to yourselves, as you read 
any creeds or confessions, the lips by which they were first 
uttered, the hands by which they were first written. Hear 
the Apostles' Creed, as it summed up in its few simple sen- 
tences the belief of the Roman martyrs. Watch the Nicene 
Bishops meeting each other, and their opponents, and the 
Emperor Constantine, for the first time, on the shores of the 
Bithynian lake. Listen to the triumphs of Clovis and Re- 
cared over the Arians of France and Spain, the rising storms 
between East and West, and you will more clearly catch the 
true meaning of their echo in the old Latin hymn, Quicun- 
que vult, then first welcomed into the worship of Western 
Europe. Read the Articles of the English Church in their 
successive mutilations, excrescences, variations. Go to that 
most precious of collegiate libraries in the sister Univer- 
sity, where the venerable autograph which contains them 
may still be seen: look at the signatures of those whose 
names are affixed: conceive the persons whom those names 



[42] 



THE STUDY OF 



INTROD. 



represent : imagine them as any one who has ever taken part 
in any council, or commission, or committee, or conclave of 
any kind whatever, can and must imagine them ; one sacri- 
ficing, another insisting on, a favourite expression ; a new 
turn given to one sentence, a charitable colour thrown over 
another; the edge of a sharp exclusion blunted by one party, 
the sting of a bitter sarcasm drawn by another. Start from 
this view, as certain as it can be made by the facts of human 
nature and by the facts of history, both universal and par- 
ticular. Regard confessions of faith in this their only true 
historical light, and in that light many a new glimpse will be 
obtained of their practical justice and moderation; many 
a harsh expression will be explained, many a superfluous 
scruple of honest minds will vanish away, many a foolish 
controversy will be extinguished for ever. 

But the proper material for Ecclesiastical History is, after 
all, not institutions or opinions, but events and persons, 
in. His- Leviticus and the Proverbs have their own special 
evSitfand vame > Dut they are not reckoned amongst the 
persons. < historical books ' of the Jewish Church. Bing- 
ham's learned work, however useful as an auxiliary, contains 
1 the antiquities,' not the history, of the Christian Church. 
It is on its special incidents and characters that the vitality 
of any history depends. How can we best make ourselves 
acquainted with these? 

In this, as in so many other branches of knowledge, the 
question can only be fully answered in each particular case. 
General Whatever way will best enable each man, in his 
study. own peculiar situation, character, and opportunities, 
to remember and understand, and profit, that is to him the 
best, and can be taught only by consulting his own experi- 
ence. 

For general readers, the best general counsel which can 
be given, is that which I have already indicated. Study the 
history of the Church in connection with the collateral sub- 
jects with which it is bound up ; let us keep our eyes and 



II. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[43] 



ears open to the religious aspects of history, and they will 
break in upon us, we know not whence, or how. 

Let us read also, whatever we do read, as elsewhere, so 
here, in the works of eminent historians rather than in those 
of writers without a name and without a character ; and yet 
more, read, if possible, works which describe what they de- 
scribe at length and in detail, and which therefore leave a 
lasting impression on the memory and imagination, rather 
than in the crowded pages of meagre abstracts, which are 
forgotten as soon as read. Great works and full works, not 
small works and short works, are in the end the best economy 
of time, as well as of everything else. 

But this leads me to what is, on the whole, the most 
instructive, though (it may be) not the only practicable, 
_ .. . course to be followed by those who wish, in the true 

Detailed J ' 

study of sense of the word, to be ' students' of Ecclesiastical 

great events. TT . TTT ... 

History. We cannot attempt to describe or to 
study every event in detail, for time and labour would fail ; 
we need not do it compendiously, for this has been done to 
our hands again and again, and of late years with such 
candour and research as to render any further work of the 
kind superfluous. One method remains to us, at once the 
most obvious and the most interesting. Lay aside the lesser 
events, or read them only so far as to preserve a continuous 
knowledge of the general thread of the history : it is for this 
purpose that the briefer narratives, when clearly and ably 
written, are of substantial use. But study the greater events, 
scenes, places, and revolutions in all the detail in which they 
can be represented to us. 

Take, for example, the General Councils of the Church. 
They are the pitched battles of Ecclesiastical History. Ask 
The Coun- yourselves the same questions as you would about 
Clls - the battles of military history. Ask when, and 

where, and why they were fought. Put before your minds 
all the influences of the age, which there were confronted 
and concentrated from different quarters as in one common 



L44J 



THE STUDY OF 



IN TROD. 



focus. See why they were summoned to Nicsea, to Con- 
stance, to Trent: the locality often contains here, as in 
actual battles, the key of their position, and easily connects 
the Ecclesiastical History of the age with its general history 
and geography. Look at the long procession as it enters 
the scene of assembly; see who was present, and who was 
absent. 1 Let us make ourselves acquainted with the several 
characters there brought together, so that we may recognise 
them as old friends if we meet them again elsewhere. Study 
their decrees, 2 as expositions of the prevailing sentiments of 
the time; study them, as Mr. Froude has advised us to study 
the statutes of our own ancient Parliaments ; see what evils 
are most condemned, and what evils are left uncondemned ; 
observe how far their injunctions are still obeyed, or how 
far set at nought, and ask in each case the reason why. 
Read them, as I have just now noticed, with the knowledge 
given to us by our own experience of all synods of all kinds : 
read them with the knowledge which each gives of every 
other. Do this for any one Council, and you will have 
made a deep hole into Ecclesiastical History. 

And still more let this same rule be followed with regard 
to persons. Take any one character. It may be we shall 
_ . be attracted towards him by some accidental con- 

Detailed J 

study of nection ; it may, and should rather, be on account 
great men. ^ ^ s p re _ em inent greatness. Do not let him leave 
you till you have, at any rate, retained some one distinctive 
feature by which you will know him again in the multitudes 
amongst which he will else be lost ; some feature of mind 
or person which he has, and which others have not. 3 

Many of us must have read, in part at least, Neander's 
' History of the Christian Church/ and will have admired, 
Nemder as every one must admire, the depth, the tender- 
toryof thT ness > tne delicacy of Christian sentiment which 
Church. pervades the whole of his vast work, and fulfils his 
own beautiful motto, ' It is the heart which makes the theo- 

* See Lecture III. ' See Lecture V. 3 See Lectures VI. VII. XI. XIL 



St. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. [45] 

'logian,' — Pectus theologum facit. Yet, without disparaging 
the value of such a mirror of Christian history in such a 
character, we cannot help feeling that it is often rather the 
theologian than the historian whose works we read ; that it is 
often rather the thoughts, than the actual persons and deeds, 
of men, that he is describing to us. They are the ghosts of 
Ossian, rather than the heroes of Homer ; they are refined, 
they are spiritualised, to that degree, that their personality 
almost vanishes ; the stars of heaven shine through them : 
but we have no hold on their earthly frames ; we can trace 
no human lineaments in their features, as they pass before 
us. Let us endeavour to nil up this outline ; however much 
of deeper interest it may have for the more philosophical 
mind, it will hardly lay hold on the memory or the affections of 
the more ordinary student, unless it is brought closer to our 
grasp. How differently we learn to estimate even Neander 
himself, according as we merely regard him as a thinker of 
holy thoughts, the writer of a good book, or as we see the 
venerable historian in his own proper person, — his black, 
shaggy, overhanging eyebrows, and his strong Jewish physi- 
ognomy revealing the nation and religion to which he first 
belonged, — working at his history night and day with in- 
satiable ardour, to show to his unconverted countrymen 
what Christianity really was ; abstracted from all thought of 
worldly cares, of food, and dress, and money, and times ; 
living, dying, buried in the affections, in the arms, of his 
devoted pupils ! What by proximity of time we are enabled 
to do for the historian, true research usually enables us to 
do for those whom he describes. Watch their first ap- 
pearance, their education, their conflicts, their death- beds. 
Observe their relative position to each other ; see what one 
did which another would not have done, what one thought 
or said which to another would have been heretical or 
superstitious ; or, lastly, what all did, and said, and thought 
in common. 

If I were to name one especial excellence amongst the 



[46] 



THE STUDY OF 



INTROD. 



many which render Mr. Grote's great achievement so im- 

Representa- portant an addition, not merely to Grecian His- 
dSn^ionof t0I 7> t> ut t0 a11 historical study, of whatever kind, 
characters, WO uld be the keen discrimination with which he 
presents, not merely distinct characters, but distinct types of 
character in the lineage of the Grecian mind, whom before 
we had been accustomed to regard much as we usually 
regard the fixed stars — their distance from each other being 
lost in comparison with the distance from ourselves. In 
these contrasts and combinations of character we find exactly 
what is most needed in the history of the Church. Here, 
even more than in common history, we are apt to blend 
together the different persons of the story under one common 
class. Yet here, even more than in common history, we 
ought to keep each separate from each, if we would learn 
the lessons they have to teach to the world. Of ordinary 
readers, how few there are to whom the Fathers, the 
Schoolmen, nay, even the Reformers, although divided as 
classes, are not confounded as individuals ! How few there 
are who can trace the descent, step by step, as the genealogy 
(so to speak) of the Church is unrolled before us ! From 
Ignatius to Cyprian, from Origen to Athanasius, from 
Athanasius to Augustine, from Augustine to Bernard, from 
Bernard to Aquinas, to Tauler, to Luther, how wide are the 
gaps, how necessary the connection, how startling the differ- 
ence ! Or, again, in the more outward history, how various 
are the trains of association awakened by the successive 
representatives of the Empire and of the Papacy, in Con- 
stantine, in Clovis, in Charlemagne, in Barbarossa, in 
Charles V. ; or, on the other hand, in Gregory I., in Gregory 
VII., in Innocent III., in Leo X., in Sixtus V. ! Each has 
his own message to deliver ; each has his own work to 
perform ; each is a link in that manifold chain which conveys 
the electric spark from the first to the nineteenth century. 
It was a happy thought of Eusebius, that he would trace the , 
history of the various ancient churches through the sue- 



II. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[47] 



cession of Bishops, who in those early times were literally 
the personifications of their flocks. It is a yet happier 
arrangement, whenever the interest of the history of the 
whole Church can be concentrated in the still grander suc- 
cession of those who have stood forth as the overseers and 
guides of Christendom, whether by good or bad eminence, 
— not only from generation to generation, but from century 
to century, and from age to age. 

It is not without reason that I have thus recommended 
for your study the selection of the detailed representation 
Uses of this °f some one event, person, or institution, of com- 
method. manding interest. Not only will it furnish us with 
the best mode of giving life to what is often a barren labour, 
but it will also be the best safeguard against many of the 
evils with which the student of Ecclesiastical History is beset. 

First, it is always useful to be reminded of the various 
degrees of importance in the different events and institutions 
. - , . of the Church. There is no more common error 

I. Gradation 

of import- of theological students than to regard everything 

ance in ~ . . . 

ecclesiastical connected with religion as of equal significance, 
subjects. They w iu a ii ow 0 f no light or shade, no difference 
between things essential and things unessential, no pro- 
portion between means and ends, between things moral 
and things ceremonial, between things doubtful and things 
certain. Against this levelling tendency of ecclesiastical 
study, History lifts up a warning which may be heeded when 
all else fails. Believe that Athanasius and Augustine are 
worthier objects of interest than Flavian or Optatus, and 
you will have made one step towards believing that there is 
a gradation of importance in the several controversies in 
which the Church has been engaged. Believe that the 
invasion and conversion of the barbarians was the great 
crisis and work of mediaeval religion, and you will have 
made a step towards believing that the Church of Christ 
has higher aims than the disputes respecting the observance 
of Easter, or the shape of the clerical tonsure. 



[48] 



THE STUDY OF 



INTROD. 



Secondly, this combination of study round one main 
object solves, in part, the difficulty which I noticed in my 
ii Combi ^ rst Lecture, respecting the relations of Civil and 
nation of Ecclesiastical History. The subordinate persons 
Ecciesiasti- and events of each may be easily divided from one 
cai History, ^q^j. jj ut foe greater characters of necessity 
combine both elements ; they are the meeting points of the 
two spheres of human life ; they rise above the point of 
divergence ; they show that in the most important moments 
of social and individual action all the influences of life, 
physical, intellectual, political, moral, come together ; in 
these cases, whatever we may do elsewhere, we cannot dis- 
entangle the web without breaking it. Those divisions of 
history which we sometimes see under the heads of * civil 
* and military,' 1 political,' and 'religious,' though convenient 
for common wars or common controversies, yet utterly fail 
when they touch an age like the Reformation, though 
possible in the cases of Melanchthon or Jeremy Taylor, 
break down entirely when applied to Luther or Oliver 
Cromwell. The unity of purpose which is the main charac- 
teristic of any great mind, the close connection of leading 
ideas which is the main interest of any great age, is 
grievously marred when we have to seek the disjointed 
fragments from different quarters, and take up over and 
over again the thread of the same interrupted story, 
in Cau Thirdly, this same method will be a protection 
tion against against the prevailing sin of ecclesiastical historians 
— exclusiveness and partiality. 

It is well known that Eusebius openly avows his intention 
of relating only those incidents in the lives of the martyrs of 
Palestine which would reflect credit on the Church, and that 
Milner constructs his whole history on the principle that he 
will omit all mention of ecclesiastical wickedness, and record 
only the specimens of ecclesiastical virtue. Such a process, 
however edifying and useful for certain purposes, yet is never 
wholly safe, and happily is rendered almost impossible as 



Hi 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[49] 



soon as we wish to consider the full character and bearings of 
any person or institution on which we are engaged. If once 
we are inspired with a genuine desire of seeing the man as 
he really was, if he was worth being seen at all, we shall not 
be satisfied unless we see him altogether. Here, as in so 
many other respects, the sacred history of the Jewish Church 
is our best example. We there see, not the half, but the 
whole, of David. We are told not only of his goodness, but 
of his sins ; and we can there judge how wonderfully the 
history of the Church has gained by such a frank disclosure : 
how thin, how pale in comparison, would that biography 
have been, had the darker side been suppressed, and the 
bright side only exhibited. Such a completeness of view we 
are almost driven to take, when we explore, not one, but all 
the sources whence our knowledge can be drawn. 1 We may 
still lament that the story of the lion is so often told only by 
the man, that the lives and opinions of heretics can be traced 
only in the writings of the orthodox, that the clergy have been 
so often the sole historians of the crimes of the laity. But 
we shall have learned at least to know that there is another 
side, even when that side has been torn away or lost. We 
shall often find some ancient fragment or forgotten parch- 
ment, like that which vindicates Edwy and Elgiva from the 
almost unanimous calumny of their monastic enemies. We 
shall see that in the original biographies of Becket, partial 
though they be, enough escapes to reveal that he is not the 
faultless hero represented to us in modern martyrology. 

The mere perusal of the indiscriminate praise and abuse 
lavished on the same person by two opposite historians is 
instructive, even for our guidance in the present. The mere 
collection of the cross-fire of vituperation from modern parti- 
sans is useful as teaching us distrust in any one-sided view of 
the past. Selden, who knew well the danger and falsehood 
of extremes, confines his advice on ' ecclesiastical story ' to 
this single point — to study the exaggerated statements of 

1 See Lecture II. 
C 



[So] 



THE STUDY OF 



INTROD. 



Baronius on the one side, and of the Magdeburg Centuriators 

on the other, and ' be our own judges.' Nor let anyone 
suppose that this conflict of evidence renders the attainment 
of certainty impossible. Doubtless there are many points 
both in sacred and in common history, both in civil and 
ecclesiastical records, where we must be content to remain 
in suspense. History will have left half its work undone, 
if it does not teach us humility and caution. But essential 
truth can almost always be found, truth of all kinds can with 
due research be usually found : she lies, no doubt, in a well ; 
but we may be sure that she is there if we dig deep enough. 
In this labour teachers and students must all work together. 
What one cannot discover, many at work on the same point 
can often prove beyond doubt. Like Napoleon and his 
comrades, when lost in the quicksands of the Red Sea, let 
each ride out a different way, and the first that comes to 
firm ground bid the others halt and follow him. 

Fourthly, this method of study will enable us all from 
time to time to set our foot on that firmest of all ground, 
iv. Refe- which every student of history ought to touch once 
rence to [ n n i s jjf e or iginal authorities. We cannot do it 

original au- ' ° 

thorities. always, but by the mere necessity of exploring any 
one subject to the bottom we must do it at times. It will 
be a constant charm of the history of the Chosen People 
that there we shall rarely be absent from, at any rate, the 
nearest approaches which can now be made to the events 
described. But it will be a charm also in the minute in- 
vestigation of any point in the later history, that, however 
well told by modern compilers, there is almost sure to be 
something in the original records which we should else have 
overlooked. How inestimable are the fragments of Hege- 
sippus and the Epistle of the Church of Lyons embedded 
in the rhetoric of Eusebius ! How lifelike, in the dead parti- 
sanship of Strype, are the letters, injunctions, and narratives 
of the actors whose words and deeds he so feebly undertakes 
to represent ! 



II. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



And original records are not confined merely to contem- 
poraneous histories, nor even to contemporaneous literature, 
sermons, poems, laws, decrees. Study the actual statues 
and portraits of the men, the sculptures and pictures of the 
events : if they do not give us the precise image of the per- 
sons and things themselves, they give us at least the image 
left on those who came nearest to them. Study their monu- 
ments, their gravestones, their epitaphs, on the spots where 
they lie. Study, if possible, the scenes of the events, their 
aspect, their architecture, their geography ; the tradition 
which has survived the history, the legend which has sur- 
vived the tradition ; the mountain, the stream, the shapeless 
stone, which has survived even history and tradition, and 
legend. 

Take two examples instead of a hundred. There are few 
more interesting episodes in modern Ecclesiastical History 
an that of the Scottish Covenanters. But the 

Graves of 

the Cove- school in which that episode must be studied is 
Scotland itself. The caves, and moors, and moss- 
hags of the Western Lowlands ; the tales, which linger still, 
of the black charger of Claverhouse, of the strange encounters 
with the Evil one, of the cry of the plover and peewit round 
the encampments on the hill side, are more instructive than 
many books. The rude gravestones which mark the spots 
where those were laid who bore testimony to ' the covenanted 
1 work of reformation, and Christ's kingly government of His 
' house,' bring before us in the most lively, because in the 
most condensed, authentic, original form, the excited feeling 
of the time, and the most peculiar traits of the religion of 
the Scottish people. Their independence, their fervour, their 
fierceness, may have belonged to the age. But hardly out of 
Scotland could be found their stubborn endurance, their 
thirst for vengeance, their investment of the narrowest 
questions of discipline and ceremony with the sacredness 
of universal principles. We almost fancy that we see the 
survivors of the dead spelling and scooping out their savage 

C 2 



[52] 



THE STUDY OF 



IN TROD. 



rhymes on the simple monuments, each catching from each 
the epithets, the texts, the names, almost Homeric in the 
simplicity and the sameness with which they are repeated 
on those lonely tombstones from shore to shore of the 
Scottish kingdom. 

Or turn to a similar instance of kindred but wilder interest. 
What insight into the familiar feelings and thoughts of the 
The Cata- primitive ages of the Church can be compared to 
combs. that a ff or( ied by the Roman catacombs ! Hardly 
noticed by Gibbon or Mosheim, they yet give us a likeness 
of the life of those times beyond that derived from any of 
the written authorities on which Gibbon and Mosheim repose. 
Their very structure is significant ; their vast extent, their 
labyrinthine darkness, their stifling atmosphere, are a stand- 
ing proof both of the rapid spread of the Christian conver- 
sions, and of the occasional fury of the heathen persecutions. 
The subjects of the sculptures and paintings place before us 
the ideas with which the first Christians were familiar ; they 
remind us, by what they do not contain, of the ideas with 
which the first Christians were not familiar. We see with 
our own eyes the stories from the Old and the New Testa- 
ment which sustained the courage of the early martyrs, and 
the innocent mirth of their early festal sacraments. The 
barbarous style of the sculptures, the bad spelling and coarse 
engraving of the epitaphs, impress upon us more clearly than 
any sermon the truth that the weak, and base, and despised 
things of the world, were chosen to bring to nought the things 
which are mighty. He who is thoroughly steeped in the 
imagery of the catacombs will be nearer to the thoughts of 
the early Church than he who has learned by heart the most 
elaborate treatise even of Tertullian or of Origen. 

And now, having set before you the method of the study 
which, for all who enter upon it seriously, and in its general 
Opportuni- features -even for all who enter upon it superficially, 

ties for this . , . , , . . _ . . 

study. is the most desirable, let me briefly notice some of 
the special opportunities possessed by ourselves. 



II. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[53] 



First, if there ever was a Church in which Ecclesiastical 
History might be expected to flourish, it is the English. 

Unlike almost all the other Churches of Europe, 

I. In the , . . . . . x 

Church of alone in its constitution, in its origin, in its formu- 
Engiand. i ar j es ^ j t touches all the religious elements which 
have divided or united Christendom. He may be a true 
son of the Church cf England, who is able to throw him- 
self into the study of the first Four Councils to which the 
statutes of our constitution refer, or of the mediaeval times 
in which our cathedrals and parishes were born and nur- 
tured. He also may be a true son of the same who is able 
to hail as fellow- workers the great reformers of Wittenburg, 
of Geneva, and of Zurich, whence flowed so strong an in- 
fluence over at least half of our present formularies. But 
he is the truest son of all who, in the spirit of this union, 
feels himself free to sympathise with the several elements 
and principles of good which the Church of England has 
thus combined, who knows that the strength of a national 
Church, especially of the Church of a nation like ours, lies 
in the fact that it has never been surrendered exclusively to 
any one theological influence, and that the Christian faith 
which it has inherited from all is greater than the differences 
which it has inherited from each. 

The Prayer-book as it stands is a long gallery of Eccle- 
siastical History, which, to be understood and enjoyed 
thoroughly, absolutely compels a knowledge of the greatest 
events and names of all periods of the Christian Church. 
To Ambrose we owe the present form of our Te Deum ; 
Charlemagne breaks the silence of our Ordination prayers 
by the Vent Creator Spiritus} The Persecutions have given 
us one creed, and the Empire another. The name of the 
first great Patriarch of the Byzantine Church closes our daily 
service ; the Litany is the bequest of the first great Patriarch 
of the Latin Church, amidst the terrors of the Roman pesti- 
lence. Our collects are the joint productions of the Fathers, 

1 Thesaurus Hymnologicus, i. 2, 3, 290. 



[54] 



THE STUDY OF 



INTROD. 



the Popes, and the Reformers. Our Communion Service 
bears the traces of every fluctuation of the Reformation, 
through the two extremes of the reign of Edward to the 
conciliating policy of Elizabeth, and the reactionary zeal of 
the Restoration. The more comprehensive, the more free, 
the more impartial is our study of any or every branch of 
Ecclesiastical History, the more will it be in accordance with 
the spirit and with the letter of the Church of England. 

Secondly, I cannot forbear to notice the special advan- 
tages vouchsafed to all of us in this place as members of this 
great University. Its libraries enable us to pursue 

II. In the & J . . - . , . F 

University our cross- examination of ancient witnesses, our re- 
of Oxford. p ro d uct i on 0 f ancient scenes and events through 
all the appliances of antiquarian and artistic knowledge. Its 
peculiar mixture of various characters and callings, students 
and studies, invites us to that fusion of lay and clerical, of 
modern and ancient, of common and sacred, which is so 
vital to a full understanding of our subject, yet which w r ould 
be so easily lost in institutions more purely theological, more 
strictly professional. But, besides all this, the very place 
itself is teeming with history, if not of the more universal 
Church, yet of the Church of our own country, to which, 
sooner or later, our studies must be turned. 

In those studies I trust that we shall find that ' Alfred 
' the Great, our first Founder,' did well to plant his seat of 
learning beside the venerable shrine of St Frideswide. We 
shall be the better able to comprehend Duns Scotus and the 
schoolmen as we stand in the ancient quadrangle of Merton, 
or listen to the dim traditions of Brasenose. Mediaeval 
theology and practice will stand out clearly in the quaint 
customs of Queen's, and the romantic origin of All Souls. 
The founders of Exeter and of New College will give us a 
true likeness of mediaeval prelates, — architects, w r arriors, 
statesmen, and bishops, all in one. Wycliffe will assume a 
more distinct shape and form to those who trace his local 
habitation as Master of Balliol. Erasmus will not soon die 



II. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[55] 



out of our recollection when we remember the little college of 
Corpus, which he hoped would be to Great Britain what the 
Mausoleum was to Caria, and what the Pyramids were to 
Egypt. The unfinished splendour of Christ Church is the 
enduring monument of the magnificence and of the fall of 
Wolsey. The Reformation will not be unaptly represented 
to us in the day when the quadrangles were knee-deep in 
the torn leaves of the scholastic divines, or when Ridley and 
Latimer suffered for their faith beside the gateway of Bo- 
cardo. Its successive retirements and advances have left 
their traces in the foundation of Wadham, Trinity, and 
Jesus. From St. John's began the counter-reformation of 
Laud. Magdalen and University are the two memorials of 
resistance and subservience to James II. From Lincoln 
and Pembroke sprang the great religious movement of Wes- 
ley and Whitfield : and Oriel will not allow us to forget that 
we too have witnessed a like movement in our own day, of 
various forms and various results, already become historical, 
which will at least help us to appreciate such events in for- 
mer times, and to remember that we too are parts of the 
Ecclesiastical History of our country. 

Finally, this leads us to the reflection that there will be 
probably many amongst my hearers who are looking forward 
m T to an active life in the various ministrations, near 
tive clerical and distant, of the English Church. They too 
will have in their different localities, in those from 
which they came hither, in those to which they will go hence, 
the same atmosphere of ancient times surrounding them, 
wherever their lot be cast. Our Ecclesiastical History is not 
confined to Oxford or to any one sacred city. Everywhere 
we shall find something to keep alive in our recollections the 
growth and spread of the Christianity of this great country. 
Almost every church and churchyard has its own antiquities. 
Almost every parish and every sect has its own strange 
spiritual experiences past or present. In almost every 
county* and province we may study those august trophies of 



THE STUDY OF 



INTROD. 



Ecclesiastical History, instructive beyond those of almost 
any other country, our cathedrals. I need name but one, 
the most striking and the most obvious instance, the cradle 
of English Christianity, the seat of the English Primacy, 
my own proud cathedral, the Metropolitical Church of 
Canterbury. 

But, beyond any mere antiquarian interest, there must 
also be many occasions, in the work of every English clergy- 
man, when the history of the Church may yield lessons of 
a practical and substantial value in his manifold duties 
and labours. What those lessons are I shall trust in some 
measure to represent in my next Lecture. Meanwhile, let 
me express the hope and the stimulus which ought to be 
given by the thought that I shall be addressing myself not 
merely to students but to those who will have to turn their 
study into practice ; not merely to the confined atmosphere 
of a lecture-room, but to a spirit blowing out from us and 
in upon us, to and from the four winds of heaven. There 
has been doubtless a tendency in past times (perhaps there 
will be in all times) which recent measures have wisely 
endeavoured to counteract, a tendency to absorb the general 
functions of the University into the special departments of 
ecclesiastical thought and education. But we must not for- 
get that there is also an academical narrowness, and dryness, 
and stiffness ; and that there is, on the other hand, an eccle- 
siastical breadth, and freedom, and warmth, which is for that 
evil, if not the highest, at least to many of us the nearest, 
remedy. To think that any words here spoken, any books 
here studied, may enliven discourses and ministrations far 
away in the dark corners of London alleys, in the free air of 
heaths and downs in north or south, on western mountains 
or in eastern fens ; that records of noble deeds achieved, 
and of wise sayings uttered, long ago, may lend a point to 
practical precepts, or soften needless differences, or raise dull 
souls heavenward, or give a firmer grasp on truth; — this will 
pf itself cheer many an hour of anxious labour. In- that 



II. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[5/J 



labour and with that hope it is for all of us to join. By 
constant communication of mutual knowledge, by contribu- 
tion of the results of the several researches and gifts of all, 
students and learners will really be to their Professor not 
only (according to the well-known and now almost worn-out 
saying of Niebuhr) his wings but also his feet, and his hands, 
and his eyes. By bearing in mind the large practical field 
in which our work may be afterwards used, we shall all bring 
to the very driest bones of our study sinews, and flesh, and 
blood, and breath, and spirit, and life. 



[58] 



THE ADVANTAGES OF introd. 



III. 

THE ADVANTAGES OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

In my First Lecture, when defining the province of Ecclesias- 
tical History, Iiras led to describe it in its widest extent ; 
in my second, when stating the method by which life could 
be given to the study, I was led to dwell upon its narrower 
limits. And we must endeavour, in our future course, never, 
whilst studying the parts, to forget the whole ; nor ever so 
to lose ourselves in the whole as to neglect the study of one 
or more of the parts. Breadth without accuracy, accuracy 
without breadth, are almost equal evils. 

In the present Lecture I propose to consider some of the 
chief practical advantages of the study. 

Whatever may be the uncertainties of History, whatever 
its antiquarian prejudices, whatever its imaginative tempta- 
i. import- tions, there is at least one sobering and enlarging 
fn th^oiog? e ff ect always to be expected from it — that it brings 
cai study. us down from speculations and fancies to what at 
least profess to be facts, and that those facts transport us 
some little distance from the interests and the illusions of 
the present. This is especially true of History in connection 
with Theology. As it is one of the main characteristics of 
Christianity itself, that alone of all religions it claims to be 
founded on historical fact ; that its doctrines and precepts 
in great measure have been conveyed to us in the form of 
history ; and that this form has given them a substance, a 
vitality, a variety, which could, humanly speaking, have been 
attained in no other way : so we need not fear to confess 



III. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[59] 



that the same connection has existed through all the sub- 
sequent stages of the propagation of the religion. ' The 
1 disciple is not above his Master ; ' Theology is not above 
Christianity : the Christian Church is in many respects the 
best practical exposition of the Christian Religion. Facts 
are still the most powerful, the most solid, the most stubborn 
guides in the mazes of speculation and casuistry : they cut 
through difficulties which arguments cannot overturn ; they 
overturn theories which will surrender to nothing else. 
Ecclesiastical History is thus, as it were, the backbone of 
Theology. It keeps the mind of the theological student in 
an upright state. Often as facts are perverted, and twisted, 
and bent to meet a purpose, yet they offer a sterner resistance 
than anything else short of the primary instincts of humanity. 

They offer, too, not only the most convincing, but the 
least irritating modes of persuasion, an advantage in theo- 
logical matters of no mean importance. The wrath which 
is kindled by an anathema, by an opinion, by an argument, 
is often turned away by a homely fact. It is like suddenly 
meeting an enemy face to face, of whom we have known only 
by report ; he is different from what we expected ; we cannot 
resist the pressure of his hand and the glance of his eye ; he 
has ceased to be an abstraction, he has become a person. 
How many elaborate arguments respecting terms of salvation 
and terms of communion are shivered to pieces, yet without 
offence, almost without resistance, as they are 'walked 
* through ' (if I may use the expression) by such heathens as 
Socrates, such Nonconformists as Howard, such Quakers as 
Elizabeth Fry ! 

This applies more and more strongly as our range of facts 
is enlarged. The more numerous and the more varied are 
the objects which we embrace within our range of vision, the 
less likely are we to place our trust in what Bacon well calls 
'the idols of the cave,' in which our own individual lot is 
cast. 

It will be vain to argue, on abstract grounds, for the 



[60J 



THE ADVANTAGES OF introd. 



absolute and indefeasible necessity of some practice or cere- 
mony, of which we have learnt from history that there is 
no instance for one, two, three, or four hundred years, in the 
most honoured ages of the Church. It will be vain to de- 
nounce as subversive of Christianity, doctrines which we have 
known from biography to have been held by the very saints, 
martyrs, and reformers whom else we are constantly applaud- 
ing. Opinions and views which, in a familiar and modified 
form, waken in us no shock of surprise, or even command 
our warm admiration, will often for the first time be truly 
apprehended when we see them in the ritual or the creed of 
some rival, or remote, or barbarous Church, which is but the 
caricature and exaggeration of that which we ourselves hold. 
Practices which we insist on retaining or repudiating as if 
they involved the very essence of the Catholic faith or of the 
Reformation, will appear less precious or less dangerous, as 
the case may be, in the eyes of the respective disputants, if 
history shows us clearly that we thereby make ourselves, on 
the one hand, more papal than the Pope, more Roman than 
Rome ; on the other hand more Lutheran than Luther, more 
Genevan than Calvin. 

If this be the effect of the study of even isolated facts of 
Christian history, much more will it result from the study of 

the general phenomena which mark its course. 
anceofa rt " There may be a tendency in special subjects of 
of n EccL^i- w ecclesiastical study to cramp and narrow the mind, 
t£y al His " k ut there is none such in the more general view, 

which embraces its relations to the world at large, 
and which compels us to view the lay as well as the clerical 
element of the Church, the broad secular framework in 
which the whole Church itself is set. 

It is always useful to see, as must be seen in any extensive 
survey, how large a portion of our ecclesiastical diversities 
is to be traced, not to religious causes, but to the more in- 
nocent, and in one sense irresistible, influences of nation, of 
climate, of race, of the general course of human affairs. The 



hi. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. [6l] 

bitterness of English partisanship will be greatly diminished 
in proportion as we recognise the fact, that the divergence 
between the Church of England and Nonconformists springs 
from differences not so much of theological principle or 
opinion, as of social and hereditary position. The greater 
divisions of Christendom can be regarded 'calmly and 
' kindly,' in proportion as we are able to take in, as from a 
summit, the whole view of which they form the intersecting 
lines. What seemed, near at hand, to be mere deformities, 
from a more distant point are lost in the sense of the vast 
prospect to which each feature contributes its peculiar part 
The most cursory view of the various sects and Churches of 
the world will make us suspect that we are not all truth 
and goodness, nor they all error and vice. The very names 
of the chiefest among them, Greek, Latin, Gallican, and 
Anglican, will show us how much of the distinction between 
them must be traced simply to national and geographical 
influences. 

Nor let it be supposed that a philosophical or a general 
view of Ecclesiastical History is of necessity a cold or con- 
temptuous view. There is, it is true, a melancholy feeling 
suggested by any wide contemplation of Christendom. We 
think of the contrast between the story as it might have been 
and the story as it is. We ask what ought to have been 
' more noble or more beautiful than the gradual progress of 
' the Spirit of light and love, dispelling the darkness of 
' folly, and subduing into one divine harmony all the jarring 
* elements of evil ; ' and we have in its place (if I may use 
words the more touching from the keenness of regret with 
which they were uttered) 'no steady, unwavering advance 
' of heavenly spirits, but one continually interrupted, checked, 
' diverted from its course, driven backward ; as of men 
' possessed by some bewildering spell, wasting their strength 
4 upon imaginary obstacles, hindering each other's progress 
' and their own, by stopping to analyse and dispute about 
' the nature of the sun's light till all were blinded by it, 



[62] 



THE ADVANTAGES OF introd. 



* instead of thankfully using its aid to show them the right 
' path onward.' 1 

Most true, — yet even in its very sadness containing 
grounds of hope and consolation. 

For, first, though the course of Ecclesiastical History be 
thus dark, there is always a bright side to be found in Eccle- 
siastical Biography. 

Study the lives, study the thoughts, and hymns, and 
prayers, study the death-beds of good men. They are the 
in. Use of salt, not only of the world but of the Church. In 
graphy of them we see close at hand, what on the public 
good men. s tage of history we see through every kind of dis- 
torted medium and deceptive refraction. In them we can 
trace the history if not of ' the Catholic Church,' at least of 
'the Communion of Saints.' The Acta Sanctorum were 
literally, as a great French historian has observed, the only 
light, moral and intellectual, of the centuries, from the 
seventh to the ninth, which may without exaggeration be 
called, 'the dark ages.' 2 'Their glories,' it has been well 
said, ' shine far beyond the limits of their daily walk in life ; 
' their odours are wafted across the boundaries of unfriendly 
' societies ; their spiritual seed is borne away, and takes root 
' and bears manifold in fields far distant from the gardens of 
' the Lord where they were planted.' 3 We have to be on 
our guard against the proverbial exaggerations of biographers ; 
we have to disentangle fable and legend from truth and fact. 
But the profit is worth the risk ; the work will be its own 
reward. It is well known that amidst the trials which beset 
Henry Martyn the missionary, on his voyage to India, the 
study in which he found his chief pleasure and profit was in 
the kindly notices of ancient saints which form the redeeming 
points of Milner's ' History of the Church.' ' I love ' (so he 
writes in his diary) ' to converse, as it were, with those holy 



1 Arnold's Miscellaneous Works, p. 286. 

' Guizot's Lectures on the Civilisation of France, c xvii. 

* Wilson's Bampton Lect., p. 275. 



III. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[63] 



* bishops and martyrs, with whom I hope, through grace, to 

* spend a happy eternity. . . . The example of the Christian 

* saints in the early ages has been a source of sweet reflection 
' to me. . . . The holy love and devout meditations of 

* Augustine and Ambrose I delight to think of. . . . No 
' uninspired sentence ever affected me so much as that of 
' the historian — that to believe, to suffer, and to love, was 
' the primitive taste.' 1 What he so felt and expressed may 
be, and has been, felt by many others. Such biographies are 
the common, perhaps the only common, literature alike of 
rich and poor. Hearts, to whom even the Bible speaks in 
vain, have by such works been roused to a sense of duty and 
holiness. However cold the response of mankind has been 
to other portions of ecclesiastical story, this has always com- 
manded a reverential, even an excessive, attention. 

Let us also remember, that what there is of instruction 
here is exactly of the sort which we ought to expect. 
Christianity affects the springs of action, rather than the 
actions themselves ; from its very beginning it has been 
seen in the lowly rather than the lofty places of mankind ; 
in the manger of Bethlehem, in the peasants of Galilee, ' in 
' the caves and dens of the earth : ' we may therefore fairly 
look for its chief influences out of the beaten track of 
history ; when we cannot trace it on the great highway of 
the world, we may fairly conclude that its effects will be 
found in the corners and pathways of life : — 

* Sprinkled along the waste of years, 
Full many a soft green isle appears : 
Pause where we may along the desert road, 
Some shelter is in sight, some sacred, safe abode.' 

On the other hand, if we turn from the case of individual 
iv. Use of Christians to the case of the great masses of indi- 
aJuhoStyof viduals which form the main bulk of the Church 
the Church, they too have a lesson to teach, less palpable, but 



1 Memoir of Henry Martyn, pp. 127, 130, 136. 



[64] 



THE ADVANTAGES OF 



INTROD. 



by no means to be despised, though it has been sometimes 
pushed to exaggeration. 

We know the old saying of Vincentius, 1 Quod semper, 
* quod ubique, quod ab omnibus,' 'Believe what has been 
' believed always, everywhere, and by everybody.' It is 
needless to repeat the arguments by which it can be shown 
that, in a literal sense, this axiom is always either untrue or 
inapplicable. The solitary protest 1 is always to be honoured 
— the lonely martyr is avenged at last. Churches and 
nations, and whole generations, often seem to lose their 
reason. Baronius himself confesses that in the Church of 
the tenth century there was no pilot to guide the helm, no 
captain to command the crew, at the moment of its greatest 
need. 

But still the maxim of Vincentius contains a certain 
element of truth, which the facts of history entirely confirm. 
There is a common sense in the Church as there is a 
common sense in the world, which cannot be neglected 
with impunity ; and there is an eccentricity in individuals 
and in sects which always tends to lead us, if not into 
dangerous, at least into crooked, paths. The error which 
is held by great, ancient, and national communities, often 
loses its mischief, and entirely changes its meaning, when it 
becomes part of the general established belief. The truth 
which is held by a narrow sect often becomes error from the 
mere fact of the isolation and want of proportion in which 
it is held. 2 The strange folly of Christians persecuting 
Christians was first introduced on a large scale, not by the 
Orthodox, but by the heretics of the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies. The fancies of Millenarians, however innocent and 



1 See Lecture VII. 

- In the able essay by M. Renan, 
1 On the Future of Religion ' (Revue des 
Deux Mondes, Oct. 15, i860), where he 
considers the prospects of the Catholic, 
the National, and the sectarian principle, 
I venture to think that the gifted writer, 
in the preference which he awards to the 



third of these principles, has overlooked 
the historical proofs of its inferiority to 
either of the two former, as regards 
toleration and comprehensiveness, what- 
ever may have been its other services. 
Compare Mr. Matthew Arnold's Lectures 
on 1 Culture and Anarchy.' 



in. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. [65] 



natural, and however widely diffused among small circles, 
have always been resisted by the robust sense of the Uni- 
versal Church. It is not, as a general rule, the larger, but 
the lesser, congregations of Christendom that have imposed 
the most minute and petty restrictions on opinion and 
practice. Whilst the Imperial, venerable, Orthodox Church 
of the whole East is content to repose on the short Creed 
of the first Councils, the little Church and State of Bruns- 
wick, under the auspices of Duke Julius, requires, or did 
require till recently, from its ministers a stringent subscrip- 
tion, not only to the three Creeds, the Augsburg Confession, 
the Apology for the Confession, and the Smalcaldic Articles, 
but to all that is contained in all the works of Luther, in all 
the works of Melanchthon, in all the works of Chemnitz. 
The ' Nine Articles ' of 1 the Evangelical Alliance ' impose a 
yoke on the freedom of thought and conscience far heavier 
than that of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of 
England. 

In fact, the higher and wider is the sweep of vision, the 
more difficult it is to stumble at trifles, and make mountains 
out of mole-hills. Power, no doubt, is often frightfully 
abused, whether in the hands of ecclesiastics or of laymen ; 
but to both, if there be any nobleness of character on which 
to work, it brings far more moderation and largeness of 
heart than is attainable by even better men in inferior 
stations. It was the charity and the wisdom of the Popes 
which protected the Jews in the middle ages against the 
fanatical attacks of individual zealots. The royal heart of 
the young King Edward was softer than the mercies even 
of a gentle prelate. Oliver Cromwell, when he came to 
wield the power of Church and State, of universities and of 
armies alike, was tolerant to a degree which his humbler 
followers were incapable of imitating or understanding. 

It is difficult to express the deference due to these con- 
siderations, without placing them above or below their just 
estimate. But they form too obvious, too important, I may 

d 



[66] 



THE ADVANTAGES OF 



INTROD. 



add, too consoling, an inference from the course of ecclesi- 
astical events, to be omitted altogether. Let us receive the 
fact both as an encouragement and as a caution. Whatever 
other charges may be brought against the history of Chris- 
tendom, and however much it may have embraced within 
or alongside of itself sallies of wild sectarianism, yet it can- 
not fairly be called the history of Fanaticism, or even ©f 
enthusiasm. Grey hairs, and high station, and long ex- 
perience, whether of individuals or of communities, have 
their own peculiar claims to respect. The movement of the 
Church to perfection has in it an element of solidity, of 
permanence, and of prudence, as well as of fluctuation and 
progress and zeal. 

But, yet further, even when we consider more deeply 
the darker points in our general view, a sense of unity 
v Better emer S es fr° m tne midst of disunion, a sense of 
understand- success from the midst of failure. Errors and 
ences and of truths which we are apt to ascribe to special sects, 
Churches, individuals, will often be seen to belong 
really to characters and principles which underlie and 
countersect the artificial distinctions on the surface of 
controversy. The ingenious essays in which Archbishop 
Whately traces 'the errors of Romanism' to the general 
fallacies latent in every creed and every Church, might be 
extended to all kinds of theological division. The cele- 
brated treatise of Bossuet on 'the Variations of Protes- 
' tantism ' might be overlaid by an instructive work on a 
larger basis, in a more generous spirit, and with a nobler 
object, 'the Variations of the Catholic Church,' showing 
how wide a range of diversities even the most ancient and 
exclusive communities have embraced ; how many opposing 
principles, practices, and feelings, like the creeks or valleys 
of some narrow territory, overlap, traverse, enfold, and run 
parallel with each other into the very heart of the inter- 
vening country, where we should least expect to find them. 
Reformers, before the Reformation ; Popes, in chairs not 



III. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



of S. Peter ; ' new presbyter but old priest writ large ; ' 1 old 
' foes with new faces ; ' heresy under the garb of orthodoxy, 
orthodoxy under the garb of heresy ; they who hold, ac- 
cording to the ancient saying, ra cuperiKa ko^oAikco?, and 
they also who hold ra KaOo\u<a cupeTiKws ; — strange com- 
panions will be thus brought together from the east and 
from the west ; from the north and from the south. Pelagius 
lurks under the mitre of Chrysostom or the cowl of Jerome ; 
Loyola will find himself by the side of Wesley ; John Knox 
will recognise a fellow worker in Hildebrand ; the austerities 
of Benedict, the intolerance of Dominic, will find their 
counterpart at Geneva and in Massachusetts ; the missionary 
zeal of the Arian Ulfilas, of the Jesuit Xavier, and of the 
Protestant Schwartz will be seen to flow from the same 
source. The judgment of history will thus far be able to 
anticipate the judgment of Heaven, and to supersede with 
no doubtful hand the superficial concords and the super- 
ficial discords which belong to things temporal, by the true 
separation and the true union which belong to things 
eternal. 

But it is not only as a matter of wisdom and charity, 
but as a ground of Christian evidence, that a large view of 
vi Evi ecclesiastical differences is specially useful. In 
dence ren- the diversity of the Church will be found a more 
troth of e powerful argument for the divine origin of Christi- 

Chnstianity. than ^ ^ mogt perfect un j ty> J t j g 

not, humanly speaking, surprising that a religion should 
sustain itself from age to age in the same race and country. 
We argue truly that such a restriction was needed as a 
support, not for the strength but for the infirmities of 
Judaism ; we argue truly against the universal truth of 
Mahometanism, that it has never been able permanently to 
establish itself in any but an Eastern climate. But the 
distinguishing characteristic of the Christian Church has 
been, that it has assumed different forms, and yet not 
perished in the process ; that the gulf, however wide, which 

d 2 



[68] 



THE ADVANTAGES OF introd. 



separates Greek from Latin, and both from Protestant, has 
yet not been wide enough to swallow up the common 
Christianity which has been transmitted from one to the 
other. And, in like manner, to recognise the influence of 
races, institutions, and political convulsions on the history 
of the Church is assuredly not to diminish, but to exalt, its 
importance to men and to nations ; not to underrate its 
mission, but to represent it in its full grandeur. Nothing 
less than one of the prime agencies of the world could be 
so interwoven with the progress of great events, or in its 
different manifestations fall in so readily with the broad 
lines of demarcation which Nature herself has drawn be- 
tween the various branches of the human family. 

And, yet further, the very imperfections and failings of 
the Church may tend to give us both a more sober and a 
vn Les more hopeful view of its ultimate prospects. The 

sons from alarms, the dangers, the persecutions, the COrmp- 
the failings . ' _ , , r 

of the tions through which it has safely passed, are so 
many guarantees that it is itself indestructible. 
The fact that these obstructions to Christian truth and good- 
ness are found not in one Church only, but in all, instead of 
causing restlessness and impatience, ought to dispose us to 
make the best of our lot, whatever it be. We learn that 
every Church partakes of the faults, as well as of the excel- 
lences, of its own age and country ; that each is fallible as 
human nature itself ; that each is useful as a means, none 
perfect as an end. To find Christ or Antichrist exclusively 
in any one community is against charity and against humi- 
lity, but, above all, against the plain facts of history. Let 
us hold this truth firmly, and we shall have then secured 
ourselves against two of the worst evils which infest the 
well-being of religious communities, the love of controversy 
and the love of proselytising. 

vni Ad- Every such reflection forces us back on a consi- 
vamages of deration which is both a chief safeguard and a chief 
acompan a( j vanta g e 0 f Ecclesiastical History, the com- 



III. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[69] 



parison which it suggests between what the Church is, and 
sonofEccie- what in the Scriptures it was intended to be ; be- 
uJiy with 1S " tween what it has been, and what from the same 
tures. cnp " source we trust that it may be. 

It is hard to say whether, by such a comparison, the 
study of the Bible or the study of Ecclesiastical History is 
most the gainer. 

What is the history of the Church 1 but a long commen- 
tary on the sacred records of its first beginnings ? It is a 
fulfilment of prophecy in the truest and widest sense of that 
word ; a fulfilment, not merely of predictions of future 
events, but of that higher and deeper spirit of prophecy 
which 'makes manifest the secrets of the heart.' The 
thoughts and deeds of good Christians are still, as in the 
Apostolic times, a living Bible ; an Epistle, a Gospel, 'writ- 
ten on the hearts of men, known and read of all men. 
The various fortunes of the Church are the best explanation, 
as they are the best illustration, of the parables which unfold 
the course of the kingdom of heaven. The failures of the 
Church are but the fulfilments of the mournful, almost pen- 
sive, anticipations of its history (how unlike the triumphant 
exaltations of so many human founders of human sects !), — 
' not peace, but a sword ;' 'a fire kindled on the earth ; ' 4 a 
'savour of death unto death.' 

The actual effects, the manifold applications, in history, 
of the words of Scripture, give them a new instruction, and 
afford a new proof of their endless vigour and vitality. Look 
through any famous passage of the Old, or yet more of the 
New, Testament ; there is hardly one that has not borne 
fruit in the conversion of some great saint, or in the turn it 
has given to some great event. At a single precept of the 
Gospels, Antony went his way and sold all that he had ; at 



1 1 The fulness of the stream is the 

* glory of the fountain ; and it is because 

* the Ganges is not lost among its native 

* hills, but deepens and widens until it 



' reaches the ocean, that so many pilgrim- 
' ages are made to its springs.' — Bishop 
Thirlwall's Charge, 1857, p. 81. 



[70] 



THE ADVANTAGES OF 



INTROD. 



a single warning of the Epistles, Augustine's hard heart was 
melted beneath the fig tree at Milan ; a single chapter of 
Isaiah made a penitent believer of the profligate Rochester. 
A word to S. Peter has become the stronghold of the Papacy; 
a word from S. Paul has become the stronghold of Luther. 
The Psalter alone, by its manifold applications and uses in 
after times, is a vast palimpsest, written over and over again, 
illuminated, illustrated, by every conceivable incident and 
emotion of men and nations ; battles, wanderings, dangers, 
escapes, death-beds, obsequies, of many ages and countries, 
rise, or may rise, to our view as we read it. 

Nor is it only in special passages that the history of the 
Church sets before us the greatness of its origin. It is on 
looking back upon a mountain range which we have left, 
that we often for the first time understand its true character. 
The peaks, which in a nearer view were all confused, now 
stand out distinct ; the line of heights is drawn out in its 
full length ; the openings and passes disentangle themselves 
from the surrounding valleys ; the nearer and lesser objects 
now sink to their proper level, as they are seen backed and 
overtopped by the lofty range behind and above them. 
Even so do we, at the distance of eighteen hundred years, 
see in many respects the truths of Scripture with a clearer 
vision than they who lived even amidst their recesses or at 
their very foot. We who have traversed the long levels of 
Ecclesiastical History can see what they of old time could 
not see, the elevation of those divine words and acts, as 
compared with any that followed. We can see, as they 
could not see, the wide circumference of objects which 
those words and acts overlooked, embraced, comprehended. 
We can distinguish, as they could not distinguish, the rela- 
tive importance, the due proportions, the general outline, of 
the various heights, and can sketch our picture and direct 
our steps accordingly. 

The very extent of our departure from the original truth; 
the very violence which in successive ages has been put upon 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[71] 



the sacred words ; the attempts to warp them by false inter- 
pretation or by false teaching, or to overlay them by theories 
or forgeries of a later date, only reveal in a more lively and 
instructive form what was the point from which we started, 
what is the difference of the point to which we have now 
arrived. In that coarse but instructive tale in which Dean 
Swift described the development of Ecclesiastical History, 
when the father's will is at last brought to light by the three 
contending brothers, nothing could more clearly impress upon 
them the sense of its true meaning than the recollection of 
the artifices by which they had been induced to discover in it 
the sanction of their own deviations from it. * If not totide?n 
' sententiis, then totidem verbis ; if not totidem verbis, then 
* totidem Uteris? So, with hardly an exaggeration, has Scrip- 
ture often been handled. The next best clue to reading an 
oracle straightforwardly and honestly is to be aware that we 
have been reading it backwards. The allegorical interpreta- 
tions given by the early Fathers are virtual confessions that 
they have not attempted to expound the original meaning 
of the sacred authors. The variations of reading or render- 
ing, which copyists or translators of later times have intro- 
duced into the text of the Scriptures, are positive proof that 
they found the actual words insufficient to express the altered 
views of their own age. The attention paid to passages 
manifestly of secondary importance, and the neglect of pas- 
sages manifestly of the very highest importance, may serve 
as gauges both of what we have hitherto lost and of what 
we may still hope to gain in the application of the Scriptures 
to the wants of Ecclesiastical History. 

This peculiar relation of the Bible to the history of the 
Church invites one concluding train of thought. When, six- 
ix. Future teen years ago, a revered teacher stood in this 
F. r c°cie e sSJt?- f place, and, after a survey of the field of Modern 
cai History. History, asked whether there were in the existing 
resources of the nations of mankind any materials for a new 
epoch, distinct from those which had gone before, you may 



[72] 



THE ADVANTAGES OF 



INTROD. 



remember how he answered that there were none. 1 What 
if the same question be asked with regard to the prospects 
of Ecclesiastical History? We have seen that four great 
phases have passed over the fortunes of the Church : is there 
likely to be another? We are told that the resources of 
nation and race are exhausted for the outer world in which 
our history moves : are there any stores of spiritual strength 
yet unexplored in the forces of the Christian Church? With 
all reverence and with all caution, may not the reflections 
which we have just made encourage us to hope that such a 
mine does exist, a virgin mine, in the original records of 
Christianity ? We need not speculate on the probable des- 
tinies of any Christian system or community now existing in 
the world; we need not determine whether, as our own Pro- 
testant historian has declared, the Papacy may still be 
standing ages hence, 2 after England shall have passed away; 
or whether, with the chiefs of Italian liberalism, we are to 
believe that it is steadily advancing year by year to the 
grave already dug to receive it. Still less need we compose 
volumes of future Ecclesiastical History out of fancied inter- 
pretations of the Apocalypse, in defiance alike of all human 
experience, all divine warnings. But a serious comparison 
of the actual contents of the Scriptures with the actual 
course of ecclesiastical events almost inevitably brings us to 
the conclusion that the existing materials, principles, and 
doctrines of the Christian Religion are far greater than have 
ever yet been employed ; that the Christian Church, if it 
ever be permitted or enabled to use them, has a long lease 
of new life, and new hope before it, such as has never yet 
been enjoyed. Look at the Bible on the one hand, and 
History on the other; see what are the points on which the 
Scriptures lay most emphatic stress; think how much of the 
sap and life of Christendom has run to leaf and not to fruit; 
remember how constant is the protest of Scripture, and, we 

1 Arnold's Inaugural Lecture on ' Modern History.' 
* Macaulay's Essays, vol. iii. p. 209. 



III. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[73] 



may add, of the best spirits of the universal Church, against 
preferring any cause of opinion or ceremony to justice, holi- 
ness, truth, and love ; observe how constantly and steadily 
all these same intimations point to One Divine Object, and 
One only, as the centre and essence of Christianity : — we 
cannot, with these experiences, hesitate to say, that, if the 
Christian Church be drawing to its end, or if it continue to 
its end with no other objects than those which it has hither- 
to sought, it will end with its acknowledged resources con- 
fessedly undeveloped, its finest hopes of usefulness almost 
untried and unattempted. It will have been like an un- 
genial spring cut short in full view of the summer, a stately 
vessel wrecked within the very sight of the shore. 

It may be that the age for creating new forms of the 
Christian faith is past and gone, that no new ecclesiastical 
indications boundaries will henceforth be laid down amongst 
in History. men> j t j s cer tain that in the use of the old forms 
is our best chance for the present. Use them to the utmost; 
use them threadbare, if you will : long experience, the course 
of their history, their age and dignity, have made them far 
more elastic, far more available, than any that we can invent 
for ourselves. But do not give up the study or the history 
of the Church, either in disgust at what has been, or in des- 
pair at what may be. The history of the Christian Church, 
no less than of the Jewish, bears witness to its own incom- 
pleteness. The words which describe its thoughts constantly 
betray their deflection from the original ideas which they 
were meant to express; 'Church, Gospel, Catholic, Evan- 
' gelical,' the very word 'Ecclesiastical,' as I noticed in first 
speaking of it, aie now too often the mere shadows, some- 
times even the exact opposites, of their ancient, orthodox, 
scriptural meaning. We need only trace the steps of their 
gradual descent to their present signification, in order to see 
how far they, and we with them, have to ascend again before 
we can reach the point from which they started, the point 
to which we have still to attain. Read, too, the expressions 



[74] 



THE ADVANTAGES OF 



INTROD. 



of the best and wisest Christians in their best and wisest 
moments. Take them, not in the passion of youth, not in 
the heat of controversy, not in the idleness of speculation, 
but in the presence of some great calamity, or in the calm- 
ness of age, or in the approach of death. Take that admir- 
able summary of mature Christian experience, which ought 
to be in the hands of every student of Ecclesiastical History 
— one might well add, of every student of theology, of every 
English minister of religion — which is contained in Baxter's 
review of his own narrative of his life and times. 1 See how 
he there corrects the narrowness, the sectarianism, the dog- 
matism of his youth, by the comprehensive wisdom acquired 
in long years of persecution, of labour, and devotion. Let us 
hope that what he has expressed as the result of his individual 
experience, we may find and appropriate in the collective 
experience of the old age of the Church. 

Then turn and observe how with this best witness of 
Christendom, the best witness of Christianity, as set forth in 
_ ,. . the Scriptures, entirely agrees. Take any of the 

Indications r J ° J 

in Scrip- chapters of the Old or New Testament, to which 
Prophets and Apostles appeal as containing, in 
their judgment, the sum and substance of their message; 
take, above all, the summary of all Evangelical and Apos- 
tolical truth in the Four Gospels. Read them parallel with 
the so-called religious wars and controversies of former ages. 
Read them parallel with the so-called enlightenment, and the 
so-called religious sects and parties and journals, of our own 
age. Read, and fear, and hope, and profit, by the extent of 
the contrast. 

Doubtless there is much in the study of the Scriptures 
that is uncertain and difficult. But this is nothing in com- 
parison with the light they have still to give, both in check- 
ing our judgment of the past, in guiding our judgment of the 
present and future. We may in former times have gone too 

1 The whole passage may be conveniently read in Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical 
Biography, vol. v. pp. 559-597- 



III. 



ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 



[75] 



much by their letter and too little by their spirit ; but it has 
been far oftener our fault that we have gone neither by letter 
nor by spirit; it has far oftener happened that, however much 
the spirit may be above the letter, yet the letter is far beyond 
the spirit in which we have often been accustomed to deal 
with it. Each age of the Church has, as it were, turned 
over a new leaf in the Bible, and found a response to its own 
wants. We have a leaf still to turn, a leaf not the less new 
because it is so old, not the less full of consequences because 
it is so simple. 

Of all the advantages which Ecclesiastical History can 
yield, this stimulus to a study of the Scriptures is the most 
important. That study, except to a limited extent, does not 
fall within our sphere; the province of History, as such, will 
be sufficient to employ us ; and it will indeed be an ample 
reward, if I can be enabled, in any way, to give a new charm 
or a firmer basis to this great subject. But it would be a 
reward and an object far higher, if I could, in however slight 
a measure, make it point to the grandeur and the truth of 
that which is beyond itself ; if the study of the history of the 
Church should, by way of contrast, or illustration, or com- 
parison, rouse any one to a deeper faith in the power and the 
design of the Bible, a stronger belief in what it has already 
done, a higher hope and clearer understanding of what its 
words may yet effect for us, 1 in the chapters of living his- 
tory in which we or the coming generations may bear a 
part. 

I ventured to commence this Introductory Course with 
the description of the treasures which were shown to the pil- 
grim in the palace by the highway side; I will close it with 
the prospect which he beheld thence on the far distant 
horizon, described in words too sacred, in part, perhaps, for 
us to use, but not too sacred for the truth and the hope 



1 For a defence of the study of the Temple and Professor Jowett in ' Essays 
Bible, on similar grounds, see the power- « and Reviews (pp. 44-48, 404-418.) 
ful arguments in the Essays of Dr. 



[j6] ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. introd. hi. 

which I have humbly, but in all seriousness, endeavoured to 
set before you as the conclusion of the whole matter: — 

' Then I saw in my dream, that on the morrow he got up 
£ to go forwards, but they desired him to stay till the next day 
4 also: and then, said they, we will, ... if the day be clear, 
' . . . show you the Delectable Mountains: which, said they, 
' would further add to his comfort, .... because they were 
' nearer to the desired haven than where at present he was. 
' . . . So he consented and staid. When the morning was 
' up, they had him to the top of the house, and bid him look 
' south. So he did, and behold, .... at a great distance 
' .... he saw a most pleasant mountainous country, — 
' beautified with woods, vineyards, fruits of all sorts, flowers 
' also, with springs and fountains, very delectable to behold. 
1 Then he asked the name of the country. They said it was 
4 "Immanuel's Land;" .... "and it is as common," said 
1 they, " as this hill is to and for all the pilgrims. And when 
1 thou comest there, .... from thence thou mayest see 
1 to the gate of the Celestial City, .... as the shepherds 
that live there will make appear." ' 



WORKS FOR REFERENCE ON THE HISTORY 
OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



The following are the chief works which may be consulted with advan- 
tage on the general condition of the Eastern Church : 

1. Oriens Christianus. By Michael le Quien. (French Dominican.) 
1661 — 1732. An account of the Eastern Dioceses, their extent, 
and the occupants of their sees from their foundation to 1732. 
3 vols, folio. 

2. Bibliotheca Orientalis. By Joseph Simon Assemanni. (Maro- 
nite Archbishop, Librarian of the Vatican.) 1687 — 1768. An 
account of the writers and manuscripts of Syria, Arabia, Egypt, 
and ^Ethiopia. 

3. Liturgiarum Orientalium Collectio. By Eusebius Renaudot. 
(French Jesuit.) 1646— 1720. 2 vols. 4to. 

4. Nomocanon. (Collection of the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Greek 
Church, by Photius. Edited at Paris, 161 5.) 

5. Enchologium (sive Rituale Grcecutri). Jacob Goar. 1647. 

6. Codex Liturgicus Ecclesice Orientalis. H. A. Daniel. (Leipsic, 
1853.) 

7. Libri Symbolici Ecclesice Orientalis. (Collection of modern Con- 
fessions of the Eastern Church, by Kimmel. Jena, 1843.) 

8. Lives of the Eastern Saints are contained in the Menologium 
Grcecum, or in the Latin translations of Simeon Metaphrastes, 
in the Vitce Sanctorum of Laurence Surius. 1587. 

9. Account of the eminent Writers of the Greek Church in Fabricius, 
Bibliotheca Grceca^ vols, vii.— xii. 

10. De Grcecce Ecclesice hodierno Statu. By Thomas Smith. 1698. 

11. State of 'the Greek Church. By J. Co veil, D.D. 1722. 

12. Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church. By John King, Chap- 
lain at St. Petersburg. 1787. 



r 0 T WORKS FOR REFERENCE. 

13. History of the Holy Eastern Church. By John Mason Neale, 
M. A., Warden of Sackville College. Of this laborious and learned 
work two portions only have yet appeared : 

1. The Patriarchate of Alexandria. (See infra.) 

2. The General Introduction. 2 vols. 8vo. 1850. 

To this, rather than to more recondite sources, I have usually 
referred the reader for the constitution and customs of the 
Oriental Church. I may also mention an excellent essay on 
The Eastern Churchy which appeared as a review of Mr. Neale's 
work, in the Edinb. Rev. vol. cvii. p. 322. 

For the general sentiment of the Eastern Churches a few works out of 
many are selected : 

1. Dissertations on the Orthodox, or Eastern Communion. By William 
Palmer, M.A., late Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and 
Deacon. 1853. 

2. Question Religieuse de V Orient et de V Occident. Moscow, 1856. 
Lettres a un Ami sur V Office Divin. St. Petersburg, 1850. By 
Andrew Nicolaivitch Mouravieff. 

3. Quelques Mots par un Chretien orthodoxe. Paris, 1853 ; Leipsic, 
1855, 1858. (See Lecture XII.) 

4. Introduction to Orthodox Theology. By MacariuS, Rector of the 
Ecclesiastical Academy at St. Petersburg. Translated into 
French. 1857. 

On more special subjects : 

I. Chaldeans and Nestorians. 

1. Bibliotheca Orient alis> vol. iv. (Assemanni.) 

2. The Nestorians and their Rituals. By the Rev. G. P. Badger. 

1852. 

II. Armenia. 

1. Hist. cTArmenie et cTEthiopie "t des Indes. By Mathurin de La 

Croze. (French merchant and scholar.) 1661— 1739. 

2. Haxthausen's Trans- Caucasia, Translated into Engliih. 

1854. 

3. Histoire, Dogmes, Traditions, et Liturgie de VEglise Armi- 

niane. By E. Dulaurier. Paris, 1859. 

III. Syria. 

1. Bibliotheca Orient, vol. ii. (Assemanni.) 

2. The Syrian Churches. By J. W. Etheridge. 1846. 



WORKS FOR REFERENCE. 



[79] 



IV. Egypt. 

1. Annates Patriarcharum Alexandrinorum. By Eutychius. 

(See p. 53.) 

2. Renaudot's Hisloria Patriarcharum Jacobitorum. 1 713. 

3. Lane's Modern Egyptians. (Supplement.) 1833. 

4. Sharpe's Egypt. (From the earliest times to the Arab Con- 

quest.) 1846. 

5. Neale's Patriarchate of Alexandria. 2 vols. 8vo. 1847. 

V. Abyssinia. 

1. La Croze (ut supra.) 

2. Hist. JEthiopice. By Job Ludolf. (German lawyer.) 1624 — 

1 7 14. 

3. Harris's Highlands of Ethiopia. 1844. 

VI. Georgia. 

1. Mosheim, Instil. Hist. Eccles. p. 632. 

2. Chardin's Travels. Vol. i. p. 171 — 174. 

3. A Russian History of Georgia (by M. Jossilian) is highly 

spoken of. 

VII. Constantinople and the Greek Church. 

1. The Byzantine Historians. Edited by Niebuhr. 

2. Dufresne's Glossarium Med et Infim. Gracitatis. 

3. History of the Byzantine Empire. By G. Finlay. 1 853. 

4. History of Greece, from 1453 to 1843. By G. Finlay. 1861. 

5. De Grcecis lllustribus (the Greek scholars of the fifteenth 

century). By Humphrey Hody, D.D. 1742. 

VIII. Russia. 

See Prefaces to Lectures IX. X. XI. XII. 
For a summary history of the Eastern Church, see — 
Gibbon, cc. 17, 20, 21, 23, 26—28, 32, 40, 47—49. 5'> 54, S5» 
60, 61, 66—68. 

Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History (under the chapters, on 'the 
' Oriental Churches '). 



LECTURES 

ON 

THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



LECTURE I. 

THE EASTERN CHURCH. 

The Eastern Church occupies a vast field of Ecclesiastical 
History. But it is a field rather of space than of time. It 
is marked out rather by tracts of land and races of men than 
by successive epochs in the progress of events, of ideas, or 
of characters. Hence has arisen the frequent remark that, 
properly speaking, the Eastern Church has no history. The 
nations which it embraces have been, for the most part, so 
stationary, and their life so monotonous, that they furnish 
few subjects of continuous narration. The influence which 
it has exercised on the onward course of religious opinion 
has been so slight, that by tacit consent it has almost 
dropped out of the notice of ecclesiastical historians. The 
languages in which its records and its literature are com- 
posed are such as to repel even the learned classes of the 
West ; even the Greek dialect of the East after the sixth 
century becomes almost intolerable to the eye and the ear 
of the classical student. Its system has produced hardly 
any permanent works of practical Christian benevolence. 
With very few exceptions, its celebrated names are invested 

E 



2 



THE DIVISIONS OF 



LECT. I. 



with no stirring associations. It seems to open a field of 
interest to travellers and antiquarians, not to philosophers 
or historians. 

Is there anything in such a subject to repay the labour 
or even the attention of a theological student? Had we 
not better pass on at once to more fertile and more genial 
regions? Can any Englishman, can any Protestant, nay, 
can any European, be fairly asked to look backwards on a 
field which the course of civilisation seems to have left far 
behind ? 

All this and much more may be said. Yet, on these very 
grounds, I feel that the Professor of Ecclesiastical History is 
bound, if possible, once for all, to cast that one backward 
glance, before he moves onward. Once plunged in the tur- 
moil of the West, he will have no leisure to turn to the 
repose of the East. And further, although few may enter 
into the details of its history or constitution, there are some 
general points of view from which the Eastern Church may 
be profitably considered. Out of the blank which the larger 
part of its annals presents, emerge some salient scenes and 
epochs whreh beyond question touch the universal destinies 
of mankind. There are some peculiar reasons why the study 
even of the near West may always gain by the study of the 
distant East. 

This general view of the Oriental Church — these leading 
divisions in its history — these reasons for devoting a short 
space to its study — it will be my endeavour to set forth in 
the present Lecture. 

I. I have said that the field of Eastern Christendom is a 
comparatively untrodden field. It is out of sight, and there- 
General fore out of mind. But there is a wise German 
tiriastern proverb which tells us that it is good, from time 
Church. to t i mej t0 be reminded that ' Behind the moun- 
tains there are people to be found.' * Hinter dem Berge 
sind auch Leute.' This, true of all large bodies of the 
human family from whom we are separated by natural or 



LBCT. I. THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



3 



intellectual divisions, is eminently true of the whole branch 
of the Christian family that lies in the far East. Behind the 
mountains of our knowledge, of our civilisation, of our 
activity — behind the mountains, let us also say, of our igno- 
rance, of our prejudice, of our contempt — is to be found 
nearly a third part of Christendom, one hundred millions of 
souls professing the Christian faith. Even if we enter no 
further into their history, it is important to remember that 
they are there. No theory of the Christian Church can be 
complete which does not take some account of their exist- 
ence. The proper distances, the lights and shades of the 
foreground which we ourselves occupy, of the prospect 
which we ourselves overlook, cannot be rightly represented 
without bearing in mind the enormous, dark, perhaps unin- 
telligible, masses which form the background that closes the 
retrospect of our view. 

But the Oriental Church has claims to be considered 
over and above its magnitude and its obscurity. By what- 
ever name we call it — ' Eastern,' 4 Greek,' or ' Orthodox ' — it 
carries us back, more than any other existing Christian in- 
stitution, to the earliest scenes and times of the Christian 
religion. Even though the annals of the Oriental Patriarch- 
ates are, for the most part, as regards the personal history 
of their occupants, a series of unmeaning names, the recol- 
lections awakened by the seats of their power are of the most 
august kind. Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, are centres of 
local interest which none can see or study without emotion. 
And the Churches which have sprung up in those regions 
retain the ancient customs of the East, and of the primitive 
age of Christianity, long after they have died out everywhere 
else. Look for a moment at the countries included within 
the range of the Oriental Churches. What they lose in 
historical they gain in geographical grandeur. Their bar- 
barism and their degradation have bound them to the local 
peculiarities from which the more progressive Church of the 
West has shaken itself free. It is a Church, in fact, not of 

6 2 



4 



THE DIVISIONS OF 



LECT. I. 



cities and villages, but of mountains, and rivers, and caves, 
and dens of the earth. The eye passes from height to height, 
and rests on the successive sanctuaries in which the religion 
of the East has intrenched itself, as within huge natural 
fortresses, against its oppressors — Athos in Turkey, Sinai 
in Arabia, Mar Saba in Palestine, Ararat in Armenia, the 
Cedars of Lebanon, the catacombs of KierT, the cavern of 
Megaspelion, the cliffs of Meteora. Or we see it ad- 
vancing up and down the streams, or clinging to the 
banks of the mighty rivers which form the highways and 
arteries of the wide plains of the East. The Nile still 
holds its sacred place in the liturgies of Egypt. The 
Jordan, from Constantine downwards, has been the goal 
of every Eastern pilgrim. Up the broad stream of the 
Dnieper sail the first apostles of Russia. Along the Volga 
and the Don cluster the mysterious settlements of Russian 
nonconformity. 

In this natural framework — with that strong identity of 
religion and race so familiar to the East, so difficult to be 
understood in the West — may be traced three main groups of 
Churches, which we will proceed to distinguish. 

i. The first group contains those isolated frag- 
tmnal ot ments of an earlier Christendom which emerge here 
heretical an( ^ there from the midst of Mahometanism and 

CHURCHES 

of the re- heathenism in Africa and Further Asia. In the 

mote East. , . 

strict language of ancient theology they must (with 
one exception) be called heretical sects. But they are in fact 
the National Churches of their respective countries protesting 
against the supposed innovations 1 of thesee of Constantinople, 



1 It must be remarked that a confusion • 
runs through all these Churches from a 
tripartite division, growing out of their 
relations with the Churches from which 
they have parted, or which have parted 
from them : i The National or so-called 
heretical Church of each country. 2. 
The Orthodox branch of each Church, 
in communion with the see of Constan- 
tinople, called in the Eastern languages 



'the Church of Rome' (see p. 15). 3. 
The 1 United ' or ' Catholic ' branch, con- 
sisting of converts to the Roman Catholic 
Church. As a usual rule, most writers 
of the Greek or Orthodox Church, as well 
as of our own. in speaking of these 
Churches, mean only the second of these 
two divisions ; most writers of the Roman 
Catholic Church only the third. For the 
sake of perspicuity, I confine myself in 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



5 



and holding with a desperate fidelity to forms and doctrines 
of earlier date. Easternmost of all the Eastern Churches, 
easternmost in thought and custom always, and usually 
easternmost in situation also, they supply, in the wild and 
romantic interest of their position and of their habits, their 
almost total want of theological literature or historical events. 
The characteristic fable of Prester John — the invisible Apostle 
of Asia — the imperial priestly potentate in the remote East, 
or the remote South, 1 fills up in their traditions the vacant 
space which in Europe was occupied by the Pope of Rome, 
and the Emperor of Constantinople. 

a) The ' Chaldean Christians,' 2 called by their opponents 
' Nestorians,' are the most remote of these old separatists. 
The « Chai- Only the two first councils, those of Nicaea and 
NeTtorian Constantinople, have weight'with them. The third 
Churches. — 0 f Ephesus — already presents the stumbling- 
block of the decree which condemned Nestorius. Living 
in the secluded fastnesses of Kurdistan, they represent the 
persecuted remnant of the ancient Church of Central Asia. 
They trace their descent to the earliest of all Christian 
missions — the mission of Thaddseus to Abgarus. Their 
sacred city of Edessa is identical with the cradle of all 
ecclesiastical history — the traditional birthplace of Abraham. 
In their present seclusion they have been confounded, 
perhaps 3 have confounded themselves, with the lost tribes 
of Israel. In their earlier days they sent forth missions on 
a scale exceeding those of any Western Church except the 
see of Rome in the sixth and sixteenth centuries, and for 
the time redeeming the Eastern Church from the usual re- 
proach of its negligence in propagating the Gospel. Their 
chief assumed the splendid title of ' Patriarch of Babylon,' 



each case to the first or national division 
in each of the groups of which I speak. 
A masterly sketch of these heretical com- 
munions, with the main authorities on 
each, is found in Gibbon, c. xlvii. One 
exception to this classification will be 



noticed further on. The Georgian Church 
is both National and Orthodox. 

1 See Neale's Introduction, i. 114. 

a See Neale, i. 145 ; Layard's Ni- 
neveh, i. 240. 

* Asahel Grant's Nestorians, 109. 



6 



THE DIVISIONS OF 



LECT. I. 



and their missionaries traversed the whole of Asia, as 
far eastward as China, as far southward as Ceylon. One 
colony alone remains of this ancient dominion, in extent 

Christians even § reater tnan tne P a P ac Y- The Christians of S. 
of^s. Thomas, as they are called, are still clustered round 
the tomb of S. Thomas, whether the Apostle, or the 
Nestorian merchant of the same name who restored if he 
did not found the settlement. In the ninth century they 
attracted the notice of Alfred, and, in the sixteenth century, 
of the Portuguese, and it was in reaction from the mission- 
aries of Portugal that they finally exchanged their Nes- 
torianism for the Monophysitism of Egypt and Syria. 1 

b) The Armenians 2 are by far the most powerful, and 
the most widely diffused, in the group of purely Oriental 
^ Ar Churches of which we are now speaking, and as 
menian such exercise a general influence over all of them. 

Churches. . . . . 

Their home is the mountain tract that encircles 
Ararat. 3 But, though distinct from all surrounding nations, 
they yet are scattered far and wide through the whole Le- 
vant, extending theii episcopate, and carrying on at the same 
time the chief trade of Asia. A race, a church, of merchant 
princes, they are, in quietness, in wealth, in steadiness, the 
' Quakers ' of the East, the ' Jews,' if one may so call them, 
of the Oriental Church. They were converted by Gregory 
the Illuminator in the fourth century, whose dead hand is 
still used for continuing the succession of the patriarchs. 
The seat of the patriarchate is Etchmiazin, their sacred city. 4 
Their canonical scriptures include two books in the Old 
and two in the New Testament acknowledged by no other 
Church ; the history of Joseph and Asenath, the Testament 

1 See Neale, i. 145 : Buchanan's be an exaggeration ; but the existence 
Christian Researches, 76 : Swanston's of more than eight millions we assert 
Memoirs in Journal of Asiatic Re- with confidence.' Haxthauseris Trans- 
searches, i. 129, ii. 235, iv. 235, caucasia, 298, 325. 

248. 3 For the appearance and traditions 

2 Neale, i. 65, 104. ' The Armenian of Ararat, see Haxthausen's Transcau* 
nation is widespread and numerous as casia, 190, 323. 

the waves of the sea. It is said to num- * Haxthausen, 283, 289, 304. 

ber fifteen millions of souls. This may 



lect. I. THE EASTERN CHURCH. 7 

of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Epistle of the Corinthians to 
S. Paul, and the Third Epistle of S. Paul to the Corinth- 
ians. 1 Of the extreme Oriental Churches, they furnish, by 
their wide dispersion, the closest links with the West. The 
boundary of Russia runs across Mount Ararat. The Pro- 
testant and the Papal missionaries have won from them the 
most numerous converts. They call themselves orthodox. 
They are divided from the Constantinopolitan Church by 
an almost imperceptible difference, arising, it is said, out of 
the accidental absence of the Armenian bishops from the 
Council of Chalcedon, whose decrees were therefore never 
understood, and therefore never received. 

c) The Church of Syria is the oldest of all the Gentile 
Churches. 2 In its capital, Antioch, the name of ' Christians ' 
The Syrian nrs t arose : in the age of persecution it produced 
Churches. Ignatius, and, in the age of the Empire, John 
Chrysostom and John of Damascus. In the claim of 
Antioch to be founded by S. Peter, the Eastern Church 3 
has often regarded itself as possessing whatever privileges 
can be claimed by the see of Rome on the ground of 
descent from the first Apostle. The city itself became 
' the city of God.' To the chief pastor of Antioch alone in 
the world by right belongs the title of ' Patriarch.' 4 The 
Thejaco- purely national Church of Syria is represented by 
bltes - two very different communions. The first is the 
Jacobite 5 or Monophysite Church, of which the patriarch 
resides at Diarbekir. It has one peculiar custom, the trans- 
mission of the same name from prelate to prelate. The 
patriarch, doubtless after the first illustrious Bishop of An- 
tioch, is always called Ignatius. The other communion of 

1 Curzon's Armenia, 225. 3 Travels of Macarius, 222, 224. (For 

2 The Church of Palestine can hard- this work see Lecture XI.) 
ly be reckoned among the Churches of * Neale, i. 126. 

the East which I am here considering. 5 Ibid. 152, 153. In the doubtful 

It is a mere colony of the Greek Church, derivation of their name from James the 

and its Patriarch, with the Greek Patri- Apostle, or James the heresiarch of the 

archs of Antioch and Alexandria, re- sixth century, there is the same ambiguity 

iides at Constantinople. Neale, i. 159. as in the Christians of S. Thomas, 



8 



THE DIVISIONS OF 



LECT. I. 



Syria is, in like manner, the representative both of a sect 
and a nation. The Maronites, 1 so called from their founder 
The Ma- Maro, in the fifth century, comprise at once the 
ronites. on iy re ii cs G f the old Monothelite heretics, and 
the greater part of the Christian population of Mount 
Lebanon. Their convents overhang the Kadisha, the 1 Holy 
River' of the Lebanon, which derives its name probably 
from this monastic consecration. The Cedars are under 
their especial charge. But their main peculiarity is this, 
that, alone of all the Eastern Churches, they have retained 
the close communion with the Latin Church which they 
adopted in the twelfth century through the Crusaders. Their 
allegiance is given to the see of Rome, and their learning 
has borne fruit in the West, through the labours of the two 
Assemans. They have lately acquired a more tragical claim 
on our interest through the atrocities perpetrated on their 
villages by their ancient hereditary enemies the Druses, 
provoked, it may be, but certainly not excused, by Maronite 
aggression, or Latin intrigues. 

d) In the times of the early councils the Churches of 
Syria and Egypt were usually opposed : now they are united 
The Coptic under the common theological name of Mono- 
Church. physite. Both alike take their stand, not on the 
four, but on the three first Councils, and reject the decrees 
of Chalcedon, and protest against the heterodoxy, not only 
of the whole West, but of the whole East besides them- 
selves. But the Church of Egypt is much more than the 
relic of an ancient sect. It is the most remarkable monu- 
ment of Christian antiquity. It is the only living represen- 
tative of the most venerable nation of all antiquity. Within 
its narrow limits have now shrunk the learning and the 
lineage of ancient Egypt. The language of the Coptic 
services, understood neither by people nor priests, is the 



1 Neale, 153. An interesting account presentatives of the Latin Church, is 
of the Maronites, highly illustrative of given in the Journal of the Comte de 
their connection with the French, as re- Paris. (Damas et le Liban, pp. 75-78.) 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



9 



language, although debased, of the Pharaohs. The Copts 
are still, even in their degraded state, the most civilised of 
the natives : the intelligence of Egypt still lingers in the 
Coptic scribes, who are, on this account, used as clerks in 
the offices of their conquerors, or as registrars of the water- 
marks of the Nile. 

They also represent the proud Church of old Alexandria. 
Alexandria, though a Grecian city, still was deeply coloured 
by its Egyptian atmosphere. Its old Coptic name of 
■ Rhacotis ' still lingers in the Coptic liturgies and versions 
of Scripture. The fanaticism of its populace was not Greek, 
but Egyptian. And in turn the peculiarities of the Alexan- 
drian Church have become the national war-cries of Egypt. 
The ' Monophysite ' heresy of the Copts is an exaggeration 
of the orthodoxy of Athanasius and Cyril. For this they 
denied the * human nature of Christ ; ' for this they broke 
off from the Byzantine empire, and ultimately surrendered 
to the Saracens. The Patriarch of Alexandria now resides 
at Cairo. 1 There is still, as in the first ages, a wide dis- 
tinction between the bishops and their head. He alone has 
the power of ordination : they, if they ordain at all, act 
only as his vicars. The Coptic Church alone confers or- 
dination, not by imposition of hands, but by the act of 
breathing. Alone also it has succeeded in preventing the 
translation of bishops, 2 and preserves, in the most rigid 
form, the nolo episcopari of the patriarch. 3 

In the universal kiss interchanged throughout the whole 
of a Coptic congregation ; in the prominent part taken by 
the children, who act as deacons ; in the union of social 
intercourse with worship ; in the turbaned heads and un- 
shod feet of the worshippers, the Coptic service breathes 



1 The ancient titles of Pope and 
OZcumenical Judge seem now to belong, 
not to the Coptic, but to the Greek 
Patriarch of Alexandria. For the title 
'Pope' see Lecture III. The title of 
CEcumenical Judge is derived (i) from 
the right of the Alexandrian Church to 



fix the period of Easter (see Lecture V.), 
or (2) from Cyril's presidency in the 
Council of Ephesus. 

2 Neale's Introd. i. 112, 119; Church 
of Alexandria, ii, 99-102. 

3 See Lecture VII. 



IO 



THE DIVISIONS OF 



LECT. I. 



an atmosphere of Oriental and of primitive times found in 
none of the more northern Churches even of the East. 

But there is a daughter of the Coptic Church, yet 
farther south, which is the extremest type of what may be 
Th called Oriental ultramontanism. The Church of 

Abyssinian Abyssinia, founded in the fourth century by the 
urc " Church of Alexandria, furnishes the one example 
of a nation savage yet Christian ; showing us, on the one 
hand, the force of the Christian faith in maintaining its 
superiority at all against such immense disadvantages, and, 
on the other hand, the utmost amount of superstition with 
which a Christian Church can be overlaid without perishing 
altogether. One lengthened communication it has hitherto 
received from the West — the mission of the Jesuits. With 
this exception it has been left almost entirely to itself. 
Whatever there is of Jewish or of old Egyptian ritual pre- 
served in the Coptic Church, is carried to excess in the 
Abyssinian. The likeness of the sacred ark, 1 called the ark 
of Zion, is the centre of Abyssinian devotion. To it gifts 
and prayers are offered. On it the sanctity of the whole 
Church depends. Circumcision is not only practised, as 
in the Coptic Church, but is regarded as of equal necessity 
with baptism. There alone the Jewish Sabbath is still 
observed as well as the Christian Sunday : 2 they (with the 
exception of a small sect 3 of ' the Seventh-day ' Baptists) 
are the only true ' Sabbatarians ' of Christendom. The 
' sinew that shrank, 5 no less than the flesh of swine, hare, 
and aquatic fowl, is still forbidden to be eaten. Dancing 
still forms part of their ritual, as it did in the Jewish temple. 
The wild shriek which goes up at Abyssinian funerals is the 
exact counterpart of that which Herodotus heard in ancient 
Egypt. The polygamy of the Jewish Church lingers here 
after having been banished from the rest of the Christian 
world. 

1 Harris's Ethiopia, iii. 132, 135, 137, * From this sect, I am told, a deputa- 

150, 156, 164. tion went in 1853 to preach their peculiar 

a See Gcbat's Abyssinia, doctrine to the Taepings in China. 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



II 



Whatever, it may be added, of extravagant ritualism, of 
excessive dogmatism, of the fatal division between religion 
and morality, disfigures to so large an extent the rest of 
Oriental Christianity, is seen in its most striking form in 
the usages of Abyssinia. The endless controversies respect- 
ing the natures of Christ, which have expired elsewhere, 
still rage in that barbarous country. 1 The belief in the 
efficacy of external rites to wash away sins is carried there 
to a pitch without a parallel. The greatest festival of all 
the year is the vast lustration, almost amounting to an 
annual baptism of the whole nation, 2 on the feast of 
Epiphany. One saint, elsewhere unrecognised, appears in 
the Ethiopian calendar ; Pilate is canonised, because he 
washed his hands and said, ' I am innocent of the blood of 
this just man.' 3 The moral creed of Abyssinia is said to 
be thus summed up : — 

' That the Alexandrian faith is the only true belief. 

1 That faith, together with baptism, is sufficient for justifica- 
tion ; but that God demands alms and fasting as amends for sin 
committed prior to the performance of the baptismal rite. 

* That unchristened children are not saved. 

* That the baptism of water is the true regeneration. 

* That invocation ought to be made to the saints, because 
sinning mortals are unworthy to appear in the presence of God, 
and because, if the saints be well loved, they will listen to all 
prayer. 

1 That every sin is forgiven from the moment that the kiss 
of the pilgrim is imprinted on the stones of Jerusalem; and 
that kissing the hand of a priest purifies the body in like 
manner. 

* That sins must be confessed to the priest, saints invoked, 
and full faith reposed in charms and amulets, more especially if 
written in an unknown tongue. 

* That prayers for the dead are necessary, and absolution in- 
dispensable ; but that the souls of the departed do not imme- 
diately enter upon a state of happiness, the period being in exact 
accordance with the alms and prayers that are expended upon 
earth.' 

1 Harris, iiL 19a " Ibid. LLL 202. ' Neale, L 806 



12 



THE DIVISIONS OF 



LECT. h 



This may have been coloured in passing through the 
mind of the European traveller. But his consciousness of 
the wretched state of the Church which he describes, gives 
more weight to the words of hope with which he concludes 1 
his account: — 

' Abyssinia, as she now is, presents a most singular com- 
pound of vanity, meekness, and ferocity ; of devotion, super- 
stition, and ignorance. But, compared with other nations of 
Africa, she unquestionably holds a high station. She is superior 
in arts and in agriculture, in laws, religion, and social condition, 
to all the benighted children of the sun. The small portion of 
good which does exist may justly be ascribed to the remains of 
the wreck of Christianity, which, although stranded on a rocky 
shore, and buffeted by the storms of ages, is not yet wholly over- 
whelmed ; and from the present degradation of a people avow- 
ing its tenets, may be inferred the lesson of the total inefficacy 
of its forms and profession, if unsupported by enough of mental 
culture to enable its spirit and its truth to take root in the heart, 
and bear fruits in the character of the barbarian. There is, 
perhaps, no portion of the whole continent to which European 
civilisation might be applied with better ultimate results ; and 
although now dwindled into an ordinary kingdom, Habesh, 
under proper government and proper influence, might promote 
the amelioration of all the surrounding people, whilst she 
resumed her original position as the first of African monarchies.' 

e) There is one of these remote Eastern Churches, 
which still maintains its original connection with the Ortho- 
doxy of Constantinople — the Church and kingdom, called 
by the ancients ■ Iberia,' by the moderns ' Gruzia ' or 
'Georgia.' 2 The conversion of their king, through the 
example or the miracles of Nina, a Christian captive, was 
nearly simultaneous with that of Constantine. Originally 
dependent on Antioch, its allegiance was transferred to 
Constantinople. The nation bore a considerable part in 
the Crusades, and memorials of its princes long remained 
in the convents both of Palestine and of Athos. At the 
beginning of this century Georgia was annexed to Russia. 3 

1 Harris, iii. 186. 2 See Neale, i. 61-65. 3 Ibid. L 26-31. 



LECT. X. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



13 



2. We are thus brought to the next group in Eastern 
Christendom, the Orthodox Imperial Church, which some- 
The Greek times gives its name to the whole. It is ' the Great 
Church. Church' (as it is technically called) from which 
those which we have hitherto described have broken off, 
and those which we shall proceed to describe have been 
derived. 

The ' Greek Church/ properly so called, includes the 
widespread race which speaks the Greek language, from its 
The repre- southernmost outpost in the desert of Mount Sinai, 
sentatiye through all the islands and coasts of the Levant 

of Ancient 0 

Greece. and the Archipelago ; having its centre in Greece 
and in Constantinople. It represents to us, in however 
corrupt and degraded a form, the old, glorious, world-in- 
spiring people of Athens, Thebes, and Sparta. It is the 
means by which that people has been kept alive through 
four centuries of servitude. It was no Philhellenic enthu- 
siast, but the grey-headed Germanus, Archbishop of Patras, 
who raised the standard of Greek independence: the first 
champion of that cause of Grecian liberty, in behalf of 
which in our own country the past generation was so zealous, 
and the present generation is so indifferent. The sanctuary 
of the Greek race, which is in a great degree the sanctuary 
and refuge of the whole Eastern Church, is Athos— ' the 
Holy Mountain.' 1 The old Greek mythology which made 
the peak of Samothrace the seat of the Pelasgic worship, 
and the many-headed range of Olympus the seat of the 
Hellenic gods, left the beautiful peninsula and noble 
pyramid of Athos to receive the twenty monasteries which 
shelter the vast communities of Greek, Ionian, Bulgarian, 
Servian, and Russian monks. 

The Greek Church reminds us of the time when the 
tongue, not of Rome, but of Greece, was the sacred lan- 
guage of Christendom. It was a striking remark of the 

1 See Urquhart's Spirit of the East, 288 : and Tozer's Highlands of Turkey, 
*57> 169 ; Christian Remembrancer, xxi. vol. i. 53-63. 



THE DIVISIONS OF 



lect. r. 



Emperor Napoleon, that the introduction of Christianity 
Of the early ltse ^ was > m a certam sense, the triumph of Greece 
Greek Chris- over Rome ; the last and most signal instance 
of the maxim of Horace, 'Graecia capta ferum 
victorem cepit.' 1 The early Roman Church was but a 
colony of Greek Christians or Grecised Jews. The earliest 
Fathers of the Western Church, Clemens, Irenaeus, Hermas, 
Hippolytus, wrote in Greek. The early Popes were not 
Italians but Greeks. The name of ' Pope ' is not Latin but 
Greek — the common and now despised name of every 
pastor in the Eastern Church. It is true that this Grecian 
colour was in part an accidental consequence of the wide 
diffusion of the Greek language by Alexander's conquests 
through the East, and was thus a sign, not so much of the 
Hellenic, as of the Hebrew and Oriental character of the 
early Christian communities. But the advantage thus given 
to the Byzantine Church has never been lost or forgotten. 
It is a perpetual witness that she is the mother and Rome 
the daughter. It is her privilege to claim a direct continuity 
of speech with the earliest times, to boast of reading the 
whole code of Scripture, old as well as new, in the language 
in which it was read and spoken by the Apostles. The 
humblest peasant who reads his Septuagint or Greek Testa- 
ment in his own mother tongue, on the hills of Bceotia, 
may proudly feel that he has an access to the original 
oracles of divine truth, which Pope and Cardinal reach by a 
barbarous and imperfect translation ; that he has a key of 
knowledge, which in the West is only to be found in the 
hands of the learned classes. 

The Greek Church is thus the only living representative 
Represen- °f tne Hellenic race, and speaks in the only living 
tative of the vo i ce which has come down to us from the Apos- 

Byzantine r 

Empire. tolic age. But its main characteristic is its lineal de- 
scent from the first Christian Empire. ' Romaic/ not ' Hel- 



1 Bertrand's Memoir of Napoleon, i. 206. Compare Dean Milman's Latin Chris» 
tianity, i. 27. 



lect. I. THE EASTERN CHURCH 15 

lenio,' is the name by which, from its long connection with 
the Roman Empire of Byzantium, the language of Greece 
is now known. ' Roman ' ('Pw/mhos), not ' Greek,' is the 
name by which (till quite recently) a Greek would have dis- 
tinguished himself from the Mussulman population around 
him. 4 The Church of Rome,' in the language of the far 
East, is not, as with us, the Latin Church, but the com- 
munity which adheres to the orthodox faith of the ' New 
Rome ' of Constantinople. Not Athens, not Alexandria, 
not even Jerusalem, but Constantinople, is the sacred city 
to which the eyes of the Greek race and of the Eastern 
Church are turned at this day. We can hardly doubt that 
it was the point to which the eyes of the whole Christian 
world were turned, when at the opening of the fourth 
century it rose as the first Christian city, at the command 
of the first Christian Emperor, on a site which, by its un- 
equalled advantages, was naturally marked out as the 
capital of a new world, as the inauguration of a new era. 1 
The subsequent rise of the Papal city on the ruins of the 
old Pagan metropolis must not blind us to the fact that 
there was a period in which the Eastern and not the 
Western Rome was the true centre of Christendom. The 
modern grandeur of S. Peter's must not be permitted to 
obscure the effect which was produced on the taste and the 
feelings of the sixth century by the erection of S. Sophia. 
The learning of the Greek Church, which even down to the 
eleventh century excelled that of the Latin, in the fifteenth 
century directly contributed more than any other single 
cause to the revival of letters and the German Reformation. 
In Asia and in Constantinople it has long sunk under the 
barbarism of its conquerors. But in the little kingdom of 
The church independent Greece, the Greek clergy is still, 
of Greece. w ithin narrow limits, an enlightened body. In it, 
if in any portion of Eastern Christendom, lives the liberal, 
democratic spirit of ancient Hellas. Athens, with all the 

1 See Lecture VI. 



16 



THE DIVISIONS OF 



LECT. I. 



drawbacks of an ill-adjusted union between new and old 
ways of thought, is now the centre of education and im- 
provement to the Greek clergy throughout the Levant. 

3. The third group of the Eastern Church consists of 
_ XT those barbarian tribes of the North, whose con- 

The IN or- . . 7 

thern version by the Byzantine Church corresponds to 
the conversion of the Teutonic tribes by the Latin 

Church. 

a) The first division embraces the tribes on the banks 
of the Lower Danube ; the Sclavonic Bulgaria and Servia 
The Danu- on the south ; the Latin or Romanic Wailachia 
vinw? 0 " ana * Moldavia on the north. 1 Bulgaria, which 
Bulgaria, was the first to receive Christianity from the 
preaching of Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century, 
communicated it to the three 2 others. Servia 
has since become independent of Constantinople, 
under a metropolitan or patriarch of its own, and in the 
reign of Stephen Dushan, in the twelfth century, presented 
a miniature of an Eastern Christian Empire. The Church 
„ r „■ of Wailachia and Moldavia is remarkable as being 

Wailachia ... _ ° 

and Moi- of Latin origin, yet Greek m doctrine and ritual ; 

a counterpoise to the two Churches of Bohemia 
and Poland, which, being Sclavonic by race, are Latin by 
religion, To these national communities should be added 
the extensive colony of Greek Christians who, under the 
The 'Rait name °f ' Raitzen,' occupy large districts in Hun- 
zen ' of gary, and form the extreme westernmost outposts 
ungary. ^ ^ e E astern Church. The ecclesiastical as well 
as the political importance of these several religious bodies 
has almost entirely turned on the position which they 
occupy on the frontier land of the West and East. This is 
an importance which will doubtless increase with each suc- 
ceeding generation. But in their past ecclesiastical history, 

1 Neale. i. 45, 47, 69. in a Greek pamphlet published at Con- 

a The relations of the Bulgarian to stantinople by Gregory, Chief Secretary 

the Byzantine Church are well stated, of the Synod. 

though from a one-sided point of view, 



LECT. U 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



17 



the only epochs fruitful of instruction will probably be found 
in the more stirring moments of Servian history, 1 and in the 
conversion 2 of Bulgaria. 

The church V) There remains the far wider field of the 

of Russia. Church Qf Russ i a . 

If Oriental Christendom is bound to the past by its 
Asiatic and its Greek traditions, its bond of union with the 
present and the future is through the greatest of Sclavonic 
nations, whose dominion has spread over the whole East of 
Europe, the whole North of Asia, and has but just relin- 
quished its hold on a large tract of Western America. If 
Constantinople be the local centre of the Eastern Church, 
its personal head is, and has been for four centuries, the 
great potentate who, under the successive names of Grand- 
Prince, Czar, and Emperor, has reigned at Moscow and St. 
Petersburg. Not merely by its proximity of geographical 
situation, but by the singular gift of imitation with which 
the Sclavonic race has been endowed, is the Russian Church 
the present representative of the old Imperial Church of 
Constantine. The Sclavonic alphabet is Greek. The 
Russian names of emperor, saint, and peasant are Greek. 
Sacred buildings, which in their actual sites in the East have 
been altered by modern innovations, are preserved for our 
study in the exact models made from them in earlier days 
by Russian pilgrims. 3 And in like manner, customs and 
feelings which have perished in Greece and Syria, may still 
be traced in the churches and monasteries of the North. 
When Napoleon called Alexander I., in bitter scorn, a Greek 
of the Lower Empire, it was a representation of the Czar's 
position in a fuller sense than Napoleon intended or would 
have admitted. For good or for evil, as a check on its de- 
velopment or as a spur to its ambition, the Church and 
Empire of Russia have inherited the religion and the 
policy of the New Rome of the Bosphorus far more fully 
than any Western nation, even under Charlemagne himself, 

1 See Ranke's Hist, of Servia. 3 See Lecture IX. 3 See Lecture XI. 
C 



r3 



THE EPOCHS OF 



LECT. I. 



inherited the spirit or the forms of the Old Rome beside the 
Tiber. 1 

II. These are the geographical landmarks of the Eastern 
Church. What are its historical landmarks? From the 
dead level of obscure names which these vast 

Historical 

epochs of limits enclose, what leading epochs or series of 
ern events can be selected of universal and enduring 

Church. , 

importance ? 

i. The first great display of the forces of the Oriental 
Church was in the period of the early Councils. The first 
i Period of seven General Councils, with all their leading 
the Coun- characters, were as truly Eastern Councils, as truly 
the pride of the Eastern Church, as those of 
Constance and Trent are of the Western. Almost all were 
held within the neighbourhood, most under the walls, of 
Byzantium. All were swayed by the language, by the 
motives, by the feelings, of the Eastern world 

Yet these Oriental Councils were ' general/ were ' (Ecu- 
menical,' in a sense which fairly belonged to none besides. 
No Western Council has so fully expressed the voice of 
Christendom, no assembly, civil or ecclesiastical, can claim 
to have issued laws which have been so long in force in so 
large a portion of the civilised world, as those which ema- 
nated from these ancient parliaments of the Byzantine 
Empire. And if many of their decrees have now become 
virtually obsolete, yet those of the first and most character- 
istic of the seven are still cherished throughout the East, 
and through a large portion of the West. If with Armenia 
and Egypt we stumble at the decrees of Chalcedon, if with 
the Chaldsean and Lutheran Churches we are startled by the 
language of the fathers of Ephesus, if with the Latins we 
alter the creed of Constantinople, yet Christendom, with but 
The Council few exceptions, receives the confession of the first 
of Nicaea. Council of Nicsea as the earliest, the most solemn, 
and the most universal expression of Christian theology. In 

1 See Lecture IX. 



LECT. I. THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



19 



that assembly the Church and Empire first met in peaceful 
conference : the confessors of the Diocletian persecution 
came into contact with the first prelates of an established 
church ; the father of dogmatical theology and the father 
of ecclesiastical history met for the first time in the 
persons of Athanasius and Eusebius. The General Council 
of Nicsea may be considered both as the most significant 
of all the seven, and also as the most striking scene, the 
most enduring monument of the Oriental Church at large. 1 

2. It is characteristic of Eastern history, that we cannot 
lay it out, as in the West, by regular chronological periods. 
2 The rise ^ e second epoch of universal importance in 
of Maho- Eastern Christendom, is the birth and growth of 

metanism. 1 . . . . . 

Mahometanism. All great religious movements, 
which run parallel, even though counter, to Christianity, 
form a necessary part of ecclesiastical history. But the 
religion of Mahomet is essentially interwoven with the 
Eastern Church. Even without considering the directly 
Christian influences to which the Arabian teacher was sub- 
jected, no one can doubt that there are points which his 
system, in common with that of the Eastern Church, owes 
to its Oriental origin. In other points it is a rebound and 
reaction against that Church. The history of the Greek and 
Sclavonic races can only be understood by bearing in mind 
their constant conflict with the Arabs, the Tartars, and the 
Turks. 2 

3. The conversion and establishment of the Russian 
3 . The his- Church, and through the Russian Church of the 
RuL?an the R- uss i an Empire, forms the third and most fertile 
Church. epoch of the history of Oriental Christendom. 

It is enough to indicate the successive stages in the 
growth of the Empire, the rise and fall of the Patriarchate, 
the tragical struggle of Alexis and Nicon, the singular 
development of Russian descent, the career and character 
of Peter the Great, hardly less remarkable in its religious 

1 See Lectures II. III. IV. V. 2 See Lecture VII. 

C 2 



20 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 



lect. r. 



than in its civil aspect. Every one of these events teems 
with dramatic, some with European interest, and every one 
of them is bound up with the history of the national 
Church, and therefore with the history of Eastern 
Christianity. 1 

III. These, then, are the principal divisions of the 
history, properly so called. But before considering any 
General single period apart from the rest, it is important 
character- to observe the characteristics which, more or less, 

istics of the . , . , 

Eastern are common to all the parts alike and which 
Church. distinguish them all from the. portion of Christen- 
dom to which we ourselves belong, whether we give to it 
the narrower name of the Latin, or the truer and more 
comprehensive title of the Western Church. In considering 
these differences, it is not my intention to speak of the 
special points which led, in the twelfth century, to the 
actual external separation between the Roman and Byzan- 
tine communions. The true differences between the East 
and the West existed long before their formal disruption, 
and would exist, in all probability, long after any formal 
reunion. The disruption itself was rather a consequence 
than a cause of their estrangement. The theological pre- 
texts, such as the doctrine of the Double Procession, the 
usage of leavened 2 and unleavened bread, the excommuni- 
cation of Photius and Michael Cerularius, and the failure of 
the last attempt at reconciliation in the Council of Florence, 
were themselves aggravated by more general grievances. 3 
The jealousy of the two capitals of Rome and Constanti- 
nople ) the rival claims of the Eastern and Western cru- 
saders ; the outrage of the Fourth Crusade ; the antagonism 
of Russia in earlier times to Poland, in later times to France, 
have all contributed to the same result. But the internal 

1 See Lectures IX. X. XT. XII. Julian, 302. 

2 See ' Historia Concertationum de 3 For the enumeration of dates and 
Pane Azymo et Fermentato,' 1737, by events in connection with these periods 
J. G. Hermann, Pastor of Pegau in of history, see the tabular statement at 
Saxony. Jenkins' Life of Cardinal the end of this volume. 



lect. i. THE EASTERN CHURCH. 21 

differences lie deeper than any of these external manifesta- 
tions, whether theological or political. 

i. The distinction which has been most frequently re- 
marked is that of the speculative tendency of the Oriental, 
and the practical tendency of the Western Church. This 
Speculative distinction is deepseated in the contrast long 
Eastern 7 ° f a §° described by Aristotle between the savage 
Theology, energy and freedom of Europe, and the intellectual 
repose and apathy of Asia. 1 It naturally finds its point and 
expression in the theology of the two Churches. Whilst 
the Western prides itself on the title of the ' Catholic, 
the Eastern claims the title ' Orthodox.' 2 ' The East,' says 
Dean Milman, ' enacted creeds, the West discipline.' The 
first decree of an Eastern Council was to determine the re- 
lations of the Godhead. The first decree of the Pope 3 of 
Rome was to interdict the marriage of the clergy. All the 
first founders of theology were Easterns. Till the time of 
Augustine no eminent divine had arisen in the West ; till 
the time of Gregory the Great none had filled the Papal 
chair. The doctrine of Athanasius was received, not origi ■ 
nated, by Rome. The great Italian Council of Ariminum 
lapsed into Arianism by an oversight. The Latin language 
was inadequate to express the minute shades of meaning for 
which the Greek is admirably fitted. Of the two creeds 
peculiar to the Latin Church, the earlier, that called 1 the 
Apostles',' is characterised by its simplicity and its freedom 
from dogmatic assertions ; the later, that called the Athana- 
sian, as its name confesses, is an endeavour to imitate the 
Greek theology, and by the evident strain of its sentences 



1 Arist. Pol. vii. 7. 

2 The Eastern Church has a special 
celebration of 'orthodoxy.' On 'Or- 
thodox Sunday,' at the beginning of 
Lent, the anathemas against heresy take 
the place of the curses on crimes and 
sins which mark the more practical ser- 
vices of our Ash-Wednesday. For ex- 
ample : ' To Jacobus Zanzalus the Ar- 
menian, Dioscorus Patriarch of Alex- 



andria, to Severus the Impious, to Paul 
and Pyrrhus of the same mind with 
Sergius the disciple of Lycopetrus— 
Anathema, anathema, anathema.' And 
on the other hand, ' For the orthodox 
Greek Emperors — Everlasting remem- 
brance, everlasting remembrance, ever- 
lasting remembrance.' Neale, ii. 874. 

3 The Decretal of Siricius, a.d. 385 
(Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. i. 75.) 



22 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. i. 



reveals the ineffectual labour of the Latin phrases, ' persona 1 
and 'substantia,' to represent the correlative but hardly 
corresponding words by which the Greeks, with a natural 
facility, expressed 'the hypostatic union.' And still more, 
when we touch the period at which the divergence between 
the two Empires threw the two Churches farther apart, 
the tide of Grecian and Egyptian controversy hardly ar- 
rived at the shores of Italy, now high and dry above their 
reach. 

' Latin Christianity,' says Dean Milman, ' contemplated 
with almost equal indifference, Nestorianism and all its 
prolific race, Eutychianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism. 
While in this contest the two great patriarchates of the East, 
Constantinople and Alexandria, brought to issue, or strove 
to bring to issue, their rival claims to ascendency ; while 
council after council promulgated, reversed, re-enacted their 
conflicting decrees ; while separate and hostile communities 
were formed in every region of the East, and the fear of 
persecuted Nestorianism, stronger than religious zeal, pene- 
trated for refuge remote countries, into which Christianity 
had not yet found its way : in the West there was no Nes- 
torian or Eutychian sect.' 1 

Probably no Latin Christian has ever felt himself agitated 
even in the least degree by any one of the seventy opinions 
on the union of the two natures which are said to perplex 
the Church of Abyssinia. Probably the last and only ques- 
tion of this kind on which the Latin Church has sponta- 
neously entered is that of the Double Procession of the 
Spirit. The very word ' theology ' (OeoXoy(a) arose from 
the peculiar questions agitated in the East. The Athana- 
sian controversy of Constantinople and Alexandria is, strictly 
speaking, theological ; unlike the Pelagian or the Lutheran 
controversies, it relates not to man, but to God. 

This fundamental contrast naturally widened into other 
cognate differences. The Western theology is essentially 

1 Latin Christianity, i. 137. 



LECT. I. THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



23 



logical in form, and based on law. 1 The Eastern is rhetorical 
in form and based on philosophy. The Latin divine suc- 
Rhetorkai cee( ^ e( i to tne R° man advocate. The Oriental 
as opposed divine succeeded to the Grecian sophist. Out 
to logical. ^ ^ e i 0 gi ca i an d legal elements in the West has 
grown up all that is most peculiar in the scholastic theology 
PHiosophi- °f tne m iddle ages, the Calvinistic theology of the 
cai as op- Reformation. To one or both of these causes of 

posed to 

legal. difference may be reduced many of the divergences 
which the theological student will trace in regard to dog- 
matic statements, or to interpretations 2 of Scripture, between 
Tertullian and Origen, between Prosper and Cassian, be- 
tween Augustine and Chrysostom, between Thomas Aquinas 
and John Damascenus. 

The abstract doctrines of the Godhead in the Alexandrian 
creed took the place, in the minds of theological students, 
which, in the schools of philosophy, had been occupied by 
the abstract ideas of the Platonic system. The subtleties of 
Roman law as applied to the relations of God and man, which 
appear faintly in Augustine, more distinctly in Aquinas, 
more decisively still in Calvin and Luther, and, though from 
a somewhat larger point of view, in Grotius, are almost 
unknown to the East. ' Forensic justification,' ' merit,' 
'demerit,' 'satisfaction,' 'imputed righteousness,' 'decrees/ 
represent ideas which in the Eastern theology have no pre- 
dominant influence, hardly any words to represent them. 
The few exceptions that occur may be traced directly to 
accidental gusts of Western influence. 3 

1 This is well put by Professor Maine ness,' is interpreted of imputed righte- 
(Ancient Law, 354-364). Compare ousness,' (Doctrine of the Russian 
Hampden's Bamptoa Lectures, 5. Church, p. 112, translated by the Rev. 

2 On this point I am anxious to ac- W. Blackmore). But I am assured by- 
knowledge my obligations to the learn- the learned translator that this is an un- 
ing of the Rev. F. C. Cook, Canon of accountable and almost solitary instance 
Exeter. of this mode of interpretation in the 

3 A curious exception occurs in the East. Another specimen of this excep- 
catechism of the Russian Church drawn tional theology is perhaps to be found in 
up by the late Metropolitan of Moscow, the account of Peter's deathbed. See 
where the beatitude ' Blessed are they Lecture XII. 

that hunger and thirst after righteous- 



24 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 



LECT. L 



Hence arises the apparent contradiction, that, whenever 
the Eastern theologians enter on topics which touch not the 
abstract questions of the Divine essence, but the human 
questions of grace and predestination, there is a more di- 
rectly moral and practical tone than often in corresponding 
treatises of the Protestant West. Obrysostom's transcendent 
genius and goodness would doubtless have lifted him above 
the trammels of any local influence ; but the admiration felt 
in the East for his thoroughly practical homilies, which in 
the West have often incurred the suspicion of Pelagianism, 
is a proof of the general tendency of the Church which he 
so powerfully represents. 

A single instance illustrates the Eastern tendency to a 
high theological view of the doctrine of the Trinity, com- 
bined with an absence of any precision of statement in 
regard to mediation or redemption. In the Western litur- 
gies direct addresses to Christ are exceptions. In the East 
they are the rule. In the West, even in Unitarian liturgies, 
it is deemed almost essential that every prayer should be 
closed 'through Jesus Christ.' In the East, such a close is 
rarely, if ever, found. 1 

2. The contrast between the speculative tendency of 
The specu- the Eastern Church and the practical life of the 
dencyoT" Western, appears not only in the theological, but 
mofSc in tne ecclesiastical, and especially in the monastic, 
life - system of Oriental Christendom. 

No doubt monasticism was embraced by the Roman 
Church, even as early as the fifth century, with an energy 
which seemed to reproduce in a Christian form the dying 
genius of stoical philosophy. Still the East holds the chief 
place in the monastic world. The words which describe the 
state are not Latin, but Greek or Syriac — Hermit, monk, 
anchoret, monastery, coziiobite, ascetic, abbot, abbey. It was 
not in the Apennines or on the Alps, but in the stony arms 
with which the Libyan and Arabian deserts enclose the 

1 Freeman, Principles of Divine Service, i. 373. 



lect. i. THE EASTERN CHURCH. 25 



valley of the Nile, that the first monasteries were founded. 
Anthony the Coptic hermit, from his retreat by the Red Sea, 
is the spiritual father of that vast community which has 
now overrun the world. His disciple, Athanasius, was its 
first sponsor in the West. And not only was monasticism 
born in the Eastern Church, it has also thriven there with 
an unrivalled intensity. Indeed, the earliest source of mo- 
nastic life is removed even further than the Thebaid deserts, 
in the Manichean repugnance of the distant East towards 
the material world, as it is exhibited under its simplest form 
in the Indian Yogi or the Mussulman Fakir. It is this 
Oriental seclusion which, whether from character, or climate, 
or contagion, has to the Christian world been far more for- 
cibly represented in the Oriental than in the Latin Church. 
The solitary and contemplative devotion of the Eastern 
monks, whether in Egypt or Greece, though broken by the 
manual labour necessary for their subsistence, has been very 
slightly modified either by literary or agricultural activity. 
There have, indeed, been occasional examples of splendid 
benevolence in Oriental monachism. The Egyptian monk 
Telemachus, by the sacrifice of himself, extinguished the 
gladiatorial games at Rome. Russian hermits opposed the 
securest bulwark against the savage despotism of Ivan. 1 
But these are isolated instances. As a general rule, there 
has arisen in the East no society like the Benedictines, held 
in honour wherever literature or civilisation has spread ; no 
charitable orders, like the Sisters of Mercy, which carry light 
and peace into the darkest haunts of suffering humanity. Ac- 
tive life is, on the strict Eastern theory, an abuse of the system. 

Nor is it only in the monastic life that the severity of 
Eastern asceticism excels that of the West. Whilst the fasts 
of the Eatin Church are mostly confined to Lent, liable, 
increasingly liable, to wide dispensations, exercised for the 
most part by abstinence, not from all food, but only from 
particular kinds of food, the fasts of the Eastern Church, 

1 See Lecture X. Compare Montalembert's Monks of the West, i. 38-133. 



26 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. i. 



especially of its most remarkable branch, the Coptic, extend 
through large periods of the year, are regarded as all but 
indispensable — and, for the time, repudiate all sustenance, 
though with strange inconsistency they permit of drinking, 
even to the grossest intoxication. And, finally, the wildest 
individual excesses of a Bruno or a Dunstan seem poor 
beside the authorised, national, we may almost say imperial, 
adoration of the ascetics of the East. Amidst all the con- 
troversies of the fifth century, on one religious subject the 
conflicting East maintained its unity, in the reverence of the 
Hermit on the Pillar. The West has never had a Simeon 
Stylites. 

3. Another important difference between the two Churches 
was one which, though in substance the same, may be ex- 
^ „ pressed in various forms. The Eastern Church 

The Eastern ^ . ^ . 

Church was, Jike the East, stationary and immutable ; the 
stationary, yy es j. errij West, progressive and flexible. 

This distinction is the more remarkable, because, at certain 
periods of their course, there can be no doubt that the 
civilisation of the Eastern Church was far higher than that 
of the Western. No one can read the account of the capture 
of Constantinople by the Crusaders of the thirteenth century, 
without perceiving that it is the occupation of a refined and 
civilised capital by a horde of comparative barbarians. The 
arrival of the Greek scholars in Europe in the fifteenth 
century was the signal for the most progressive step that 
Western theology has ever made. And in earlier ages, whilst 
it might still be thought that Rome, not Constantinople, was 
the natural refuge of the arts of the ancient classical world, 
the literature of the Church was almost entirely confined 
to the Byzantine hemisphere. Whilst Constantinople was 
ringing with the fame of preachers, of whom Chrysostom 
was the chief, but not the only example, the Roman bishops 
and clergy, till the time of Leo the Great, never publicly 
addressed their flocks from the pulpit. But, notwithstanding 
this occasional superiority, the Oriental Church, as a whole, 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



2; 



almost from the time that it assumed a distinct existence, 
has given tokens of that singular immobility which is in great 
part to be traced to its Eastern origin — its origin in those 
strange regions which still retain, not only the climate and 
vegetation, but the manners, the dress, the speech of the 
days of the Patriarchs and the Pharaohs. Its peculiar cor- 
ruptions have been such as are consequent not on develop- 
ment, but on stagnation ; its peculiar excellences have been 
such as belong to the simplicity of barbarism, not to the 
freedom of civilisation. 

The straws of custom show which way the spirit of an 
institution blows. The primitive posture of standing in 
prayer still retains its ground in the East, whilst in the 
West it is only preserved in the extreme Protestant com- 
munities by way of antagonism to Rome. Organs and 
musical instruments are as odious to a Greek or Russian, 
as to a Scottish Presbyterian. Jewish ordinances still keep 
their hold on Abyssinia. Even the schism 1 which con- 
vulsed the Russian Church nearly at the same time that 
Latin Christendom was rent by the German Reformation, 
was not a forward but a retrograde movement — a protest, 
not against abuses, but against innovation. The calendars 
of the Churches show the eagerness with which, whilst the 
one, at least till a recent period, placed herself at the head 
of European civilisation, the other still studiously lags behind 
it. The ' new style,' which the world owes to the enlightened 
activity of Pope Gregory XIII., after having with difficulty 
overcome the Protestant scruples of Germany, Denmark, 
and Switzerland, and last of all (with shame be it said) of 
England and Sweden, has never been able to penetrate into 
the wide dominions of the old Byzantine and the modern 
Russian Empires, which still hold to the Greek Calendar, 
twelve days behind the rest of the civilised world. 

These contrasts might be indefinitely multiplied, some- 
times to the advantage of one Church, sometimes to the ad- 

1 See Lectures XI. and XII. 



28 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 



LECT. I. 



vantage of the other. The case of the Sacraments and their 
accompaniments will suffice as final examples. 

The Latin doctrine on this subject is by Protestants so 
frequently regarded as the highest pitch of superstition — by 
The Sacra- Roman Catholics as the highest pitch of reverence 
ments. 0 f w hich the subject is capable — that it may be 
instructive to both to see the contrast between the freedom 
and reasonableness of the sacramental doctrine as held by 
Roman authorities, compared with the stiff, the magical, the 
antiquarian character of the same doctrine as represented 
in the East. We are accustomed to place the essence of 
superstition in a devotion to the outward forms and elements 
as distinct from the inward spirit which they represent, 
convey, or express. Let us, for a moment, see which has in 
this respect most tenaciously clung to the form, which to the 
spirit, of the two great ordinances of Christian worship. 

There can be no question that the original form of bap- 
tism — the very meaning of the word — was complete immer- 
immersion s i° n m tne °^ ee P baptismal waters ; and that, for at 
in Baptism. i east f our centuries, any other form was either un- 
known, or regarded, unless in the case of dangerous illness, 
as an exceptional, almost monstrous case. To this form the 
Eastern Church still rigidly adheres ; and the most illustri- 
ous and venerable portion of it, that of the Byzantine Empire, 
absolutely repudiates and ignores any other mode of ad- 
ministration as essentially invalid. The Latin Church, on 
the other hand, doubtless in deference to the requirements 
of a northern climate, to the change of manners, to the con- 
venience of custom, has wholly altered the mode, preferring, 
as it would fairly say, mercy to sacrifice ; and (with the two 
exceptions of the cathedral of Milan, and the sect of the 
Baptists) a few drops of water are now the Western sub- 
stitute for the threefold plunge into the rushing rivers or the 
wide baptisteries of the East. 

And when we descend from the administration itself of 
the sacramental elements to their concomitant circumstances, 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



29 



still the same contrast appears. In the first age of the Church 
Confirma- 11 was customary for the apostles to lay their hands 
tion - on the heads of the newly baptized converts, that 
they might receive the 'gifts of the Spirit' The 'gifts' 
vanished, but the custom of laying on of hands remained. 
It remained and was continued, and so in the Greek Church 
is still continued, at the baptism of children as of adults. 
Confirmation is, with them, simultaneous with the act of 
the baptismal immersion. But the Latin Church, whilst it 
adopted or retained the practice of admitting infants to bap- 
tism, soon set itself to remedy the obvious defect arising 
from their unconscious age, by separating, and postponing, 
and giving a new life and meaning to the rite of confirma- 
tion. The two ceremonies, which in the Eastern Church 
are indissolubly confounded, are now, throughout Western 
Christendom, by a salutary innovation, each made to 
minister to the edification of the individual, and completion 
of the whole baptismal ordinance. 

In like manner the East retained, and still retains, the 
apostolical practice mentioned by S. James — for the sick to 
Extreme cau m tne elders of the church, to anoint him 
unction. with .oil, and pray over him, that he may recover. 
'The elders,' that is, a body of priests (for they still make a 
point of the plural number), are called in at moments of 
dangerous illness, and the prayer is offered. But the Latin 
Church, seeing that the special object for which the ceremony 
was first instituted, the recovery of the sick, had long ceased 
to be effected, determined to change its form, that it still 
might be preserved as an instructive symbol. And thus the 
' anointing with oil ' of the first century, and of the Oriental 
Church, has become with the Latins merely the last, 'the 
extreme unction,' of the dying man. 

Yet once again it became a practice in the Church, early — 
infant Com- we know not how early — for infants to communi- 
mumon. cate j n t ^ e Lord's Supper. A literal application 
to the Eucharist of the text respecting the bread of life in 



30 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 



LECT. I. 



the sixth chapter of S. John naturally followed on a literal 
application to baptism of the text respecting the second 
birth in the third chapter ; and the actual participation in 
the elements of both sacraments came to be regarded as 
equally necessary for the salvation of every human being. 
Here again the peculiar genius of each of the two Churches 
displayed itself. The Oriental Churches, in conformity 
with ancient usage, still administer the Eucharist to infants. 
In the Coptic Church it may even happen that an infant is 
the only recipient, The Latin Church, on the other hand, 
in deference to modern feeling, has not only abandoned, 
but actually forbidden, a practice which, as far as antiquity 
is concerned, might insist on unconditional retention. 

4. There is yet another more general subject on which 
the widest difference, involving the same principle, exists 
Absence of between the two communions, namely, the whole 
rehgious art. re i at i on 0 f art t0 re iigious worship. Let anyone 
enter an Oriental Church, and he will at once be struck by 
the contrast which the architecture, the paintings, the very 
aspect of the ceremonial, present to the churches of the 
West. Often, indeed, this may arise from the poverty or 
oppression under which most Christian communities labour 
whose lot has been cast in the Ottoman Empire; but often the 
altars may blaze with gold— the dresses of the priests stiffen 
with the richest silks of Broussa — yet the contrast remains. 
The difference lies in the fact that art, as such, has no place 
in the worship or in the edifice. There is no aiming at 
effect, no dim religious light, no beauty of form or colour 
beyond what is produced by the mere display of gorgeous 
and barbaric pomp. Yet it would be a great mistake to infer 
from this absence of art — indeed no one who has ever seen 
it could infer — that this involves a more decided absence of 
form and of ceremonial. The mystical gestures, the awe 
which surrounds the sacerdotal functions, the long repeti- 
tions, the severance of the sound from the sense, of the 
mind from the act, both in priests and people, are not less, 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



31 



but more, remarkable than in the churches of the West. 
The traveller who finds himself in the interior of the 
Roman Catholic cathedral of Malta, after having been 
accustomed for a few weeks or months to the ritual of the 
convents and churches of the Levant, experiences almost 
the same emotion as when he passes again from the services 
of the Latin to those of the Reformed Churches. This 
union of barbaric rudeness and elaborate ceremonialism is, 
however, no contradiction ; it is an exemplification of an 
important law in the human mind. There is no more 
curious chapter in the history of the relation of the two 
Churches than that of the Iconoclastic controversy of the 
ninth century. It is true that the immediate effects of this 
controversy were transient — the sudden ebullition, not of a 
national or popular feeling, but almost, as it would seem, of 
a Puritan, or even a Mahometan, fanaticism in the breast 
of a single emperor — 'a mere negative doctrine,' 'which 
robbed the senses of their habitual and cherished objects of 
devotion without awakening an inner life of piety.' The 
onslaught on the image-worship of the Church passed away 
almost as rapidly as it had begun ; and the fanaticism 
which the Emperor Leo had provoked, the Empress Irene, 
through the second Council of Nicsea, effectually pro- 
scribed. But in the Eastern Church the spirit of Leo has 
so far revived that, although pictures are still retained and 
adored with even more veneration than the correspond- 
ing objects of devotion in the West, statues are rigidly 
excluded ; and the same Greek monk who would ridicule 
the figures, or even bas-reliefs, of a Roman Catholic church, 
will fling his incense and perform his genuflexionswith the 
most undoubting faith before the same saint as seen in the 
paintings of his own convent chapel. 

The result is well given by Dean Milman :— 
'The ruder the art the more intense the superstition. 
The perfection of the fine arts tends rather to diminish than 
to promote such superstition. Not merely does the cultiva- 



32 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 



LECT. I. 



tion of mind required for their higher execution, as well as 
the admiration of them, imply an advanced state, but the 
idealism, which is their crowning excellence, in some degree 
unrealises them, and creates a different and more exalted 
feeling. There is more direct idolatry paid to the rough 
and ill-shapen image, or the flat unrelieved and staring 
picture — the former actually clothed in gaudy and tinsel 
ornaments, the latter with the crown of gold leaf on the 
head, and real or artificial flowers in the hand — than to the 
noblest ideal statue, or the Holy Family with all the magic 
of light and shade. They are not the fine paintings which 
work miracles, but the coarse and smoke-darkened boards, 
on which the dim outline of form is hardly to be traced. 
Thus it may be said that it was the superstition which 
required the images rather than the images which formed 
the superstition. The Christian mind would have found 
some other fetiche to which it would have attributed 
miraculous powers. Relics would have been more fervently 
worshipped, and endowed with more transcendent powers, 
without the adventitious good, the familiarising the mind 
with the historic truths of Scripture, or even the legends 
of Christian martyrs, which at least allayed the evil of the 
actual idolatry. Iconoclasm left the worship of relics, and 
other dubious memorials of the saints, in all their vigour, 
while it struck at that which, after all, was a higher kind of 
idolatry. It aspired not to elevate the general mind above 
superstition, but proscribed only one, and that not the most 
debasing form.' 1 

5. Another difference presents itself, arising partly from 
Eastern ^ ne same causes, in the mode of dealing which 
church not the Eastern Church adopts towards independent 

missionary; , . . 

or hostile forms of religion. 
In regard to missions, the inaction of the Eastern 
Churches is well known. Whilst the Latin Church has sent 
out missionaries for the conversion of England and Germany 

1 Latin Christianity, ii. 152, 153. 



IECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



33 



in the middle ages, of South America, of India, and of 
China, down to our own time ; whilst many Protestants pour 
the whole of their religious energy exclusively into mission- 
ary enterprise, the Eastern Churches, as a general rule, have 
remained content with the maintenance of their own faith. 
The preaching of Ulfilas to the Goths, of the Nestorian 
missions in Asia, and, in modern times, of Russia in Siberia 
and the Aleutian Islands, are but striking exceptions. The 
conversion of the Russian nation was effected, not by the 
preaching of the Byzantine clergy, but by the marriage of a 
Byzantine princess. In the midst of the Mahometan East 
the Greek populations remain like islands in the barren sea, 
and the Bedouin tribes have wandered for twelve centuries 
round the Greek convent of Mount Sinai probably without 
one instance of conversion to the creed of men whom they 
yet acknowledge with almost religious veneration as beings 
from a higher world. 

Yet, if Eastern Christians have abdicated the glory of 
missionaries, they are exempt from the curse of proselytism; 
but not per- an d they have (with some mournful 1 examples to 
seeming. t } ie contrary) been free from the still darker curse 
of persecution. A respectful reverence for every manifest- 
ation of religious feeling has withheld them from violent 
attacks on the rights of conscience, and led them to extend 
a kindly patronage to forms of faith most removed from 
their own. The gentle spirit of the Greek Fathers has 
granted to the heroes and sages of heathen antiquity a 
place in the Divine favour, which was long denied in the 
West. Along the porticoes of Eastern churches are to be 
seen portrayed on the walls the figures of Homer, Solon, 
Thucydides, Pythagoras, and Plato, 2 as pioneers preparing 
the way for Christianity. In the vast painting of the Last 

1 The difficulty of arriving at the of the Paulicians by Theodora, A. d. 835. 

truth of the alleged Russian persecution (Gibbon, c. liv.) 

of the Roman Catholics in Poland ren- 2 They may be seen in several of the 

ders any positive statement on this sub- Moscow churches, and in the Iberian 

ject next to impossible. In earlier times monastery in Mount Athos. 
the worst persecution perhaps was that 

D 



34 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. i. 



Judgment, which covers the west end of the chief cathedral 
of Moscow, Paradise is represented as divided and sub- 
divided into many departments or chambers, thus keeping 
before the minds even of the humblest the great doctrine of 
the Gospel — which has often been tacitly dropped out of 
Western religion — ' In my Father's house are many man- 
sions.' No inquisition, no S. Bartholomew's massacre, no 
Titus Oates, has darkened the history of any of the 
nobler portions of Eastern Christendom. In Armenia, 
Henry Martin's funeral at Tokat is said to have received all 
the honours of an Armenian archbishop. In Russia, where 
the power and the will to persecute exist more strongly, 
though proselytism is forbidden, yet the worship, not only 
of their own dissenters, but of Latins and Protestants, is 
protected as sacred. In the fair of Nijni- Novgorod, on the 
confluence of the Volga and the Oka, the Mahometan mosque 
and the Armenian church stand side by side with the 
orthodox cathedral. 

6. In like manner the theology of the East has under- 
gone no systematising process. Its doctrines remain in the 
Eastern same rigid yet undefined state as that in which 
Theology tfiey were } e f t Constantine and Justinian. The 

not systema- J J J 

tised. resistance to the insertion of the words ' filioque ' 
was the natural protest of the unchanging Church of the 
early Councils against the growth, whether by development 
or by corruption, of the West. Even in points where the 
Protestant Churches have gone back, as they believe, to a 
yet earlier simplicity of faith, the Eastern Church still 
presents her doctrines in a form far less repugnant to such 
a simplicity than is the case with the corresponding state- 
ments in the Latin Church. Prayers for the dead exist, 
but no elaborate hierarchical system has been built upon 
their performance. A general expectation prevails that by 
some unknown process the souls of the sinful will be purified 
before they pass into the Divine presence ; but this has 
never been consolidated into a doctrine of purgatory. The 



lect. I. THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



35 



Mother of our Lord is regarded with a veneration which, in 
elevation of sentiment, equals any of the devotions addressed 
to her in the West ; but it is too abstract and indefinite to 
allot to her in the scheme of salvation, or the protection of 
the Church, the powerful place which is so precisely ascribed 
to her by Latin divines. The reverence for her sanctity has 
never crystallised into the modern dogma of the Immaculate 
Conception. Her death, encompassed as it is by legend, is 
yet ' the sleep ' (/cot/z^o-is) of the Virgin, not her ' assumption.' 
The boundary between the rhetorical poetical addresses to 
the saints, in the Eastern worship, and the actual invocation 
of their aid, has never been laid down with precision. 
'Transubstantiation,' if used at all as a theological term, is 
merely one amongst many to express the reverential awe 
with which the Eucharist is approached. It is not in the 
exact repetition of the words of the original institution (as 
in the Churches of Rome, of Luther, and of England), but 
in the more general and more directly spiritual form of the 
invocation of the Spirit, that the Eastern Church places the 
moment of the consecration of the elements. 

7. A similar turn is given to the institution of the 
Eastern clergy, by the absence of the organising, centralising 
The Eastern tendency which prevailed in the West. It is not 
^/^n that their spirit is less hierarchical than that of the 

lot organ- tr 

ised - Latin clergy. In some respects it is more so, in 
proportion as it more nearly resembles the Jewish type, of 
which the extreme likeness, as we have seen, is preserved in 
Abyssinia. The Greek priest concealed within the veil of 
the sanctuary is far more entirely shut out from the congre- 
gation than the Latin priest standing before the altar, in 
the presence of the assembled multitude, who can at least 
follow with their eyes his every gesture. For centuries 
in the Church of Alexandria, and still in the Church of 
Armenia, the dead hand of the first bishop has been em- 
ployed as the instrument of consecration in each succeeding 
generation. This is a more carnal and literal representation 

D 2 



36 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF 



lect. I. 



of a priestly succession than is to be found in any Western 
ordinations. But the moment we enter into practical life, 
and even into the groundwork of the theory of the two 
Churches, the powers and pretensions of the Greek hierarchy 
shrink into nothing before those of the Latin. 

The authorised descriptions of the office at once bespeak 
a marked difference. The lofty terms introduced into the 
Latin Church in the thirteenth century, and still retained in 
our own, — 'Receive the Holy Ghost .... whose 
sins thou dost retain they are retained,' — fill the place which 
in the Eastern Church is occupied by a simple prayer for 
the Divine Blessing. The expression of absolution, which 
in the Western Church was in the same thirteenth century 
changed into the positive form ' I absolve thee,' in the 
Eastern Church is still as it always was, ' May the Lord 
absolve thee.' The independent position conferred on the 
Western clergy by tithes is, at least in one portion 1 of the 
Eastern Church, almost unknown. However sacred the 
office whilst it is held, and however difficult and discreditable 
it may be to lay it aside, yet it is not, as in the Latin Church, 
indelible. An Eastern priest can divest himself of his orders 
and become a layman. Although confession to a priest is 
deemed necessary for all, yet it never has descended into 
those details of casuistry which have in the Latin Church 
made it so formidable an engine both for good and evil. 
The scandals, the influence, the terrors, of the confessional 
are alike unknown in the East. 

The laity, on the other hand, have a part assigned to 
them in the Eastern Church, which even in the Protestant 
Churches of the West has been with difficulty 
denScf the recognised. The monastic orders, although in- 
laity * eluding many clergy, are yet in the East, to a 
great extent, as they are never in the West, but as they were 
entirely in early times, lay and not clerical institutions. The 
vast community of Athos is, practically, a lay corporation 

1 See Lecture IX. 



LECT. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



37 



assisted by a small body of chaplains. The independent 
manly assertion of religion which pervades the Mahometan 
world 1 has not been lost in the Christian East. One 
special rite— that of the sacred unction of Confirmation, 
which, as we have seen, is conferred simultaneously with 
baptism — has been explained with a force and eloquence 
which, on such a subject, rings with the tone of a Tyndale 
or a Luther, as symbolising the royal priesthood of every 
Christian. ' It destroys the wall of separation that Rome 
has raised between the ecclesiastic and the layman, for we 
are all priests of the Most High— priests though not pastors 2 
— in different degrees.' This explanation of the ceremony 
may be doubtful ; but that it should be put forth at all in 
connection with one of the most peculiar and significant of 
the Oriental ecclesiastical rites, is an indication of their 
general spirit. 

In the study of the Scriptures, and the use of the liturgy 
in the vernacular languages of the several nations that have 
study of adopted Eastern Christianity, we have other traces, 
Scriptures though less direct, of the same tendency. It is 
the vemacu- true that in most Oriental Churches • these lan- 
lar tongue. g Ua g es have, by the lapse of years, become anti- 
quated, or even dead, in the mouths of those who use 
them ; and the clergy have been too timid or too apathetic 
to meet the changing exigencies of time. But the principle 
is maintained, that the language 3 of each separate nation, 
not a sacred language peculiar to the clergy, is the proper 
vehicle for worship and religious life. And the study of the 
Bible, though neglected from the barbarism of the present 
state of Oriental Christendom, is nowhere discouraged. 
The Arabic translation of the Scriptures, even in the Coptic 
Church, is listened to with the utmost attention, and is 
taught in Coptic schools. In Russia, the efforts of the 

1 See Lecture VIII. 

2 Quelques Mots, par un Chre'tien Orthodoxe (1853), P« 53* 

3 See Lecture IX. 



38 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF lect. l 



Bible Society were welcomed by Alexander I. ; and in 
Greece (until the breaking out of the War of Independence) 
by the collective hierarchy of Constantinople. 

1 God be praised,' was the expression of a devout 
Russian layman, in speaking of the scandals occasioned by 
the ignorance of the Russian priesthood ; ' the Eastern 
Church has never ruled that religious light and instruction 
are confined to the clergy. It is still in our own power to 
redeem the future.' 

This aspect of the institution of the Oriental hierarchy 
is still further brought out by two general points of contrast 
with the position of the clergy of the West. 

The centralisation of the West, as displayed in the 
Papacy, is unknown to the East. The institution of the 
Absence of Patriarchates is entirely Oriental. The very name 
a Papacy, carries us back to the primitive East. The office, 1 
though first recognised at the Council of Chalcedon, has 
struck deep roots in the East, never in the West. The 
august brotherhood of the ' All Holy,' ' the Most Blessed,' 
Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and 
Jerusalem, amidst the degradation which has beset their 
little courts, still remains as a bond to the scattered Churches 
of the Levant. In the West, the very name has been tost, 
and amongst all the titles of the Pope, that of ' Patriarch ' 
is not one. This contrast between the aristocratical and 
monarchical principles of the two Churches, partly the 
result of the general tendencies just mentioned, has been 
encouraged by the difference of the political circumstances 
of the respective Churches. What Imperial Rome lost by 
the transfer of the seat of government to the East, the 
Byzantine Empire gained. W T hat Papal Rome gained by 
the removal of a rival power and splendour, that the Patri- 
arch of Constantinople lost. As the Pope filled the place 
of the absent Emperors at Rome, inheriting their power, 
their prestige, the titles which they had themselves derived 

1 See Gregory's Vindication. 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



39 



from the days of their paganism, so the Emperors controlled, 
guided, personified, the Church at Constantinople. No 
one can read Eusebius's description of the Council of 
Nicaea without feeling that, amongst all who were then 
assembled in the hall, none occupied the same pre-eminence 
as the Emperor 1 Constantine. Justinian and Theodora, 
great as they were in legislating for the Empire, exercised a 
hardly less important influence in their determination, not 
only of the discipline but of the doctrines of the Church ; 
and what Constantine and Justinian began has been con- 
tinued by the great potentates who have ever since swayed 
the destinies of the Oriental hierarchy. In Constantinople 
itself the Sultan still exercises the right which he inherited 
from the last of the Caesars ; and the virtual appointment 
and deposition of the patriarchs 2 still places in his hands 
the government of the Byzantine Church — a power, no 
doubt, more scandalous and more pernicious in- the hands 
of the Mussulman than it was in the hands of the Christian 
despot, but not more decided and absolute. And how high 
a place is occupied by the Emperor of Russia 3 will be seen 
in treating of the Russian Church especially. 

Along with this difference in the position of the Papacy 
and the Patriarchate, was another which affected the whole 
Married position of the hierarchy itself. The Eastern Church 
clergy. at outset basked in the sunshine of Imperial 
favour — a regular institution, forming part of the framework 
of civilised society, secure from the convulsion which shook 
the rest of the world in the invasion of the northern bar- 
barians. The Latin Church, entering on her career amidst 
the crash of a falling empire, and with successive hordes of 
wild barbarians to control, instruct, and guide, was in a far 
more trying position. Amongst the various steps for the 
organisation of her clergy in this struggle the chief was the 
enforcement of celibacy. This principle has not only never 

1 See Lecture IV. 

2 The Patriarch is elected by a Synod of Bishops. But the Porte is always con« 
suited. 3 See Lecture X. . 



40 



THE LESSONS OF 



LECT. I. 



been adopted in the East, but has been repudiated even 
more positively than by Protestants. However fervent the 
Oriental Church may have been at all times in its assertion 
of the ascetic and monastic system, yet for the clerical body 
marriage is not only permitted and frequent, but compulsory, 
and all but universal. It is a startling sight to the traveller, 
after long wanderings in the South of Europe, to find him- 
self, amongst the mountains of Greece or Asia Minor, once 
more under the roof of a married pastor, and see the table 
of the parish priest furnished, as it might be in Protestant 
England or Switzerland, by the hands of an acknowledged 
wife. The bishops, indeed, being selected from the monas- 
teries, are single. But the parochial clergy — that is, the 
whole body of the clergy as such — though they cannot marry 
after their ordination, must always be married before they 
enter on their office. 1 In one instance, that of the Chaldaean 
or Nestorian Christians, the patriarch is allowed to marry. 

IV. These distinctions, which might be pursued to any 
extent, and illustrated in every particular, will suffice to show 
Advantages tnat the differences between the two divisions of 
of th? East- Christendom, although in some points superficial, 
em church, are yet in principle more radical than those which 
separate the other branches of the Christian Church from 
each other. 

It is this inward moral divergence, more than any out- 
ward theological distinction or any local distance, which 
occasions our ignorance and our indifference to the Eastern 
Church. But it is from this very divergence that accrue 
the chief advantages of the study of the Eastern Church. 

i. The ecclesiastical history of the West is full of our 
own passions, our own preconceived ideas and prejudices. 
We run round and round in the ruts of our own controver- 



1 This has been so long an established 
custom, that, like the celibacy of the 
Latin clergy, though not part of the 
doctrine, it is part of the discipline of 
the Church. An exception, however, 



has occurred in the Russian Church 
within the last few years. A theological 
professor has been ordained, although 
unmarried. 



lect. r. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



41 



sies ; every object that we see has been long familiar to us ; 
every step that we take is in footmarks of our own making. 
Every name is coloured with some theological sympathy 
or antipathy ; every sect and church is our personal enemy 
or ally. 

This living interest the history of the Eastern Church can 
never acquire. Yet it is refreshing to turn for a time to a 
region where the incidents and the characters 
the Eastern awaken no feelings except those which are purely 
Western™ 1 ™ historical ; where the principles which agitate the 
controversy. Qm rc h at large can be traced without the disturb- 
ing force of personal and national animosities. The names 
of Hildebrand, Loyola, Luther, Calvin, carry with them each 
a tempest of its own, which scatters commotion and excite- 
ment around its whole circumference. But no one will be 
able to work himself into a frenzy in defending even Chry- 
sostom or Basil ; no one will lose his temper or his charity in 
deciding the claims of the false or the true Demetrius, or 
in defending the cause of Stephen Yavorski of Riazan against 
Theophanes Procopovitch of Pshkofif. 

And what is true of individual events or persons, is 
true of the whole institution. It is not only unknown and 
therefore fresh to us, but it is compounded in such propor- 
tions, and of such materials, as to turn the force and blunt 
the edge of the implements of controversy with which in the 
West we are always destroying one another. Many a keen 
assailant of Popery or of Protestantism will find himself at 
fault in the presence of a Church which is Protestant and 
Catholic at once, sometimes in points where we least expect 
to find the respective elements of discord or concord. It cuts 
across the grain of our most cherished prejudices. Our well- 
ordered phrases are thrown into confusion by encountering 
a vast communion which, in some respects, goes so far ahead 
of us, in others falls so far behind us. From such an expe- 
rience we may be taught that there is a region above and 
beyond our own agitations. We may learn to be less positive 



42 



THE LESSONS OF 



LECT. I. 



in pushing theological premises to their extreme conclusions. 
We may find that there is a stubborn mass of fact against 
which the favourite argument of driving our adversaries into 
believing all or nothing is broken to pieces. It is useful to 
find that churches and sects are not exactly squared accord- 
ing to our notions of what our own logic or rhetoric would 
lead us to expect. The discovery of the Syrian Christians 
of S. Thomas on the shores of India was a fruitful source 
of perplexity to both sections of European Christendom. 
'Their separation from the Western world,' says Gibbon, 
' had left them in ignorance of the improvements or corrup- 
tions of a thousand years ; and their conformity with the 
faith and practice of the fifth century would equally disap- 
point the prejudices of a Papist or a Protestant' Such 
two-edged disappointments are amongst the best lessons of 
ecclesiastical history ; and such are the disappointments 
which not only the small community on the coast of 
Malabar, but the whole Eastern Church, impresses on 
the inquirers of the West, from whatever quarter they 
come. 

2. Again, a knowledge of the existence and claims of the 
Eastern Church keeps up the equipoise of Christendom, 
its compe- The weight of authority, of numbers, of antiquity, 
tition with h as various attractions for different minds. Some 

the Latin 

Church. characters are self-poised and independent. Lone- 
liness and singularity in the present, the hopes of a remote 
and ideal future, are to them the notes of a true Church. 
But there are many who are in danger of being thrown off 
their balance by the magnetic power of those associations 
which appeal to the imaginative, the social, the devotional 
parts of our nature. 

The body with which we are most familiar as producing 
this effect, is the ancient and energetic community whose 
seat is at Rome. In it we usually see the chief impersonation 
of high ecclesiastical pretensions, of an elaborate ritual, of 
outward devotion, of wide dominion, of venerable tradition. 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



43 



It is close at hand ; and therefore, whether we attack or 
admire, it fills the whole of our view. But this effect is 
considerably modified by the apparition of the Eastern 
Church. Turn from the Tiber to the Bosphorus : we shall 
see that there are two kings in the field, two suns in the 
heavens. That figure which seemed so imposing when it 
was the only one which met our view, changes all its pro- 
portions, when we see that it is overtopped by a vaster, 
loftier, darker figure behind. If we are bent on having 
dogmatical belief and conservative tradition to its fullest 
extent, we must go not to the Church which calls itself 
Catholic, but to the Church which calls itself Orthodox — to 
the Church which will die but never surrender the minutest 
point which Council or Father has bequeathed to it. If e 
are to make the most of monasticism as a necessary model 
of Christian perfection, we ought not to stop short with the 
Grande Chartreuse, or Monte Casino, when we can have 
the seclusion of Mount Athos, or the exaltation of Simeon 
Stylites. If we are to have the ancient theory of sacramental 
forms carried out to its extreme limits, we must not halt 
half-way with a Church which has curtailed the waters of 
baptism, and deferred confirmation and communion to 
years of discretion : we must take refuge in the ancient 
Eastern ritual, which still retains the threefold immersion, 
which still offers the rites of Chrism and of the Eucharist to 
the unconscious touch of infancy. 

Nay, beyond the Eastern Church itself, there is a further 
East to which we must go if wisdom is to be sought, not in 
moderation but in extremes. The Greek Church is more 
ceremonial than the Latin, but the Coptic is more ceremonial 
than the Greek, and the Abyssinian is more ceremonial than 
the Coptic. In the Church of Abyssinia we shall find the 
best example of what many seek in a limited degree in the 
West — a complete sacrifice of the spirit of Christianity to 
the letter. 

Remember, too, that if the voice of authority is confident 



44 



THE LESSONS OF 



LECT. I. 



at Rome, it is hardly less confident at Constantinople and at 
Moscow. Remember, that beyond the Carpathians, beyond 
the Hsemus, beyond the Ural range, there are unbroken 
successions of bishops, long calendars of holy men unknown 
in the W est, who can return anathema for anathema, as well 
as blessing for blessing ; who can afford to regard even 
Augustine and Jerome, not as canonised saints, only as 
'pious Christians of blessed memory.' Remember, that Athos 
can boast its miraculous pictures and springs no less than 
Rimini or Assisi. Remember, that in the eyes of orthodox 
Greeks the Pope is not the representative of a faith pure 
and undefiled, but (I quote 1 their own words) is ' the first 
Protestant,' 'the founder of German rationalism.' The 
Eastern patriarchs speak in their solemn documents of the 
Papal supremacy as 'the chief heresy of the latter days, 
which flourishes now as its predecessor Arianism flourished 
before it in the earlier ages, and which, like Arianism, shall 
in like manner be cast down and vanish away.' 2 To a 
devout Russian the basilica of S. Peter seems bare and cold 
and profane ; hardly deserving the name of church — a 
temple without an altar. Rome itself is chiefly interesting 
to him because it reminds him of Moscow, 3 but even then, 
as he pathetically adds, ' it is Moscow without the Kremlin.' 
The Pope of Rome has fallen out c f the mystic circle of 
the five patriarchs ; he has himself dropped the name ; 
his vacant place has been filled by the new Patriarchate 4 of 
Moscow. 

The fact of such wide-spread deeply rooted feelings re- 
mains in all its length and breadth to be accounted for in 
any hypothesis which we choose to frame of a universal 
Church. Eastern Christendom, so considered, is one of 



1 Quelques Mots, par un Chretien 
Orthodoxe, 1853, p. 40. 

2 Encyclic Epistle of the Eastern 
Patriarchs, 1848, § 5. (See Neale, ii. 
1195.) Compare a similar Epistle, 1723, 
addressed to the English Nonjurors 



(Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors, 
]?■ 35o). 

3 Mouravieff, Questions Re'.igieuses, 
p. 270. 

* See Lecture X. 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



45 



the strongest bulwarks against the undue claims or encroach- 
ments of any Church or see of the West, whether at Rome, 
or Geneva, or Canterbury. 

3. Yet again, if we may make this use of the Greek 
Church for purposes of war and of defence, we may also 
illustration ma ^ e use °f ^ f° r purposes of peace and harmony, 
of the unity It is often observed, with regard to the most general 

of Western 0 . 0 

Christen- features, of manners, geography, and history, that 
the West can only be perfectly understood after 
having seen the East. A green field, a rushing stream, a 
mountain clothed with verdure from head to foot, will, I 
believe, always assume a new interest in the eyes of one who 
has come from the dry, bare, thirsty East. We trace a dis- 
tinctness, a vividness, a family likeness in these features of 
Western Europe, which, until we have seen their opposites, 
almost escape our notice. Like to this is the additional 
understanding of our own portion of Christendom, gained 
by a contemplation of its counterpoise in the Oriental 
Churches. However great the differences between the 
various Western Churches, there are peculiarities in common 
which imply deeper elements of consanguinity and likeness 
than those which unite any of them to the communities of 
the East. The variety, the stir, the life, the turmoil, the 
1 drive ',' as our American brethren would call it, is, in every 
Western Church, contrasted with the immobility, the repose, 
the inaction of Greece, of Syria, and of Russia. It is in- 
structive for the staunch adherents of the Reformation to 
feel that the Latin Church, which we have been accustomed 
to regard as our chief antagonist, has after all the same 
elements of Western life and civilisation as those of which 
we are justly proud ; that, whatever it be as compared with 
England or Germany, it is, as compared with Egypt or Syria, 
enlightened, progressive, — in one word, Protestant. It is 
instructive for the opponents of the Reformation to see that 
in the Eastern section of the Christian Church, vast as it is, 
the whole Western Church, Latin and German, Papal and 



4 6 



THE LESSONS OF 



LECT. I. 



Lutheran, is often regarded as essentially one ; that the first 
concessions to reason and freedom, which involve by ne- 
cessity all the subsequent stages, were made long before 
Luther, in the bosom of the Roman Church itself ; that the 
Papal see first led the way in schism from the parent stock 
in liberty of private judgment ; that some of the most im- 
portant points in which the Latin is now distinguished from 
the Greek Church, have been actually copied and imported 
from the new Churches of the Protestant West. To trace 
this family resemblance between the different branches of 
the Occidental Church is the polemical object of an able 
treatise by a zealous member of the Church of Russia : 1 to 
trace it in a more friendly and hopeful spirit is a not un- 
worthy aim of students of the Church of England. 

4. But it would be unjust to our Eastern brethren to 
draw from them lessons merely of contrast and disparage- 
. , ; ment. There are those, no doubt, who look on the 

Advantages _ ' ' 

of the East- Oriental Church merely as the dead trunk, from 

ern over the , , - -i ,» , 

Western which all sap and life have departed, fit only to 
urc ' be cut down, because it cumbers the ground. But 
it is also, beyond doubt, the aged tree, beneath whose shade 
the rest of Christendom has sprung up. We may ask 
whether its roots have not struck too widely and too deeply 
in its native soil to allow of any other permanent form of 
religious life, in those regions which does not in some degree 
engraft itself on that ancient stem. 2 We may thankfully 
accept even the sluggish barbarism and stagnation which 
have, humanly speaking, saved so large and so venerable 
a portion of the Christian world from the consolidation of 
the decrees of Trent, and from the endless subdivisions of 



1 Quelques Mots, par un Chretien 
Orthodoxe,' 1853 and 1854. 

2 ' Let foreigners bring us light, and 
we will thank them for it. But we beg 
of them not to bring fire to burn our 
house about our ears.'— Saying- of a 
Greek bishop, recorded in Masson's 
A pology for the Greek Church, p. 7. In 



quoting this little work, which, though 
disfigured by some personal partialities, 
contains much good sense and charity, I 
cannot forbear to express my obligations 
to its author. To my intercourse with 
him at Athens, in 1840, I owe my first 
interest in the state of the Greek Church. 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



47 



Augsburg and Geneva. We may reflect with satisfaction 
that should ever the hour come for the re-awakening of 
the Churches of the East, there is no infallible pontiff at 
Constantinople, no hierarchy separated from the domestic 
charities of life, to prevent the religious and social elements 
from amalgamating into one harmonious whole. We may 
gratefully remember that there is a theology in the world of 
which the free, genial mind of Chrysostom is still the golden 
mouthpiece ; a theology 1 in which scholastic philosophy 
has had absolutely no part ; in which the authority alike of 
Duns Scotus and of Calvin is unknown. Doubtless the 
future of the whole Church is to be sought, not in the East, 
but in the West. But there is a future also for the Church 
of the East. Have we not known characters, venerable from 
age or station, who, with the most immovable adherence to 
ancient hereditary forms of belief and practice, yet, when 
brought into contact with the views of a younger and more 
stirring generation, have by the very distance from which 
they approach given it a new turn, showed a capacity for 
enduring, tolerating, understanding it, such as we should 
have vainly sought from others more nearly allied by pursuits 
or dispositions ? Such is, to an indefinite extent, the position 
of the Eastern Christian towards the Western. Kept aloof 
from our controversies, escaping our agitations, he comes 
upon them with a freedom and freshness, which in the 
wear and tear of the West can no longer be found. He has 
the rare gift of an ancient orthodox belief without intolerance 
and without proselytism. He is firmly and proudly attached 
to his own Church and nation, yet has a ready and cordial 
recognition to give to the faith of others. He knows, and 
we know, that although he may become a European, yet we 

1 ' The Greeks of the humbler classes to the inquiry of an English traveller on 

have a good acquaintance with the Gos- the state of religious knowledge in the 

pel History and the life of our Lord ; East. What was thus said of the poor 

but— they know nothing of Substittttion.' Greeks of the present day is no less true 

Such was the lamentation of an excel- of their most illustrious theologians in 

lent Presbyterian minister who had been former time, 
long resident amongst them, in answer 



4 8 



THE LESSONS OF 



LECT. I. 



can by no possibility become Asiatics. And such a know- 
ledge engenders a confidence, which between rivals and 
neighbours is almost unattainable. He stands on the 
confines of the East and West, drawn eastward by his 
habits, by his lineage, by his local position ; drawn westward 
by the inevitable, onward, westward progress of Christianity 
and of civilisation. In him, therefore, we find a link 
between those two incommunicable spheres, such as can be 
found nowhere else. The Greek race may yet hand back 
from Europe to Asia the light which, in former days, it 
handed on from Asia to Europe. The Sclavonic race may 
yet impart by the Volga and the Caspian the civilisation 
which it has itself received by the Neva and the Baltic. 

And we, too, with all our energy and life, may learn 
something from the otherwise unparalleled sight of whole 
nations and races of men, penetrated by the religious senti- 
ment which visibly sways their minds even when it fails 
to reach their conduct, which, if it has produced but few 
whom we should call saints or philosophers, has produced 
through centuries of oppression whole armies of confessors 
and martyrs. We may learn something from the sight of a 
calm strength, reposing ' in the quietness and confidence ' 
of a treasure of hereditary belief, which its possessor is 
content to value for himself, without forcing it on the 
reception of others. We may learn something from the 
sight of Churches where religion is not abandoned to the 
care of women and children, but is claimed as the right and 
the privilege of men ; where the Church reposes not so 
much on the force and influence of its clergy as on the 
independent knowledge and manly zeal of its laity. 

5. Yet once more— if there is any Church which may be 
expected to learn congenial and useful lessons from the study 
of Eastern Christendom, it is our own. I do not 

its use to ..... 

the Church lay stress on the possible connection of the ancient 
British Church with Eastern missionaries before the 
arrival of Augustine, nor on the more certain influence of 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



49 



the East on the Anglo-Saxon Church when Theodore of 
Tarsus sate on the throne of Canterbury. These associa- 
tions are too slight to sustain any substantial argument. 
But there are likenesses between our position and that of 
the Eastern Churches, which, amidst great differences, may 
render the knowledge of their history specially profitable in 
the study of our own. The national character of our religion, 
which is at once our boast and our reproach, finds a parallel 
— even an exaggerated parallel — in the Eastern identification 
of nationality and creed, such as the larger ideas of con- 
tinental Europe will hardly tolerate or understand either in 
us or in them. The relations of Church and State, as por- 
trayed in Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, are avowedly based 
on those of the ancient Church of Constantinople, and still 
find their counterpart in the modern Church of Russia. If 
the ecclesiastical commonwealth of our own little island, with 
manifold contending principles within its pale, and manifold 
sects multiplying without, can be better understood by the 
sight of a like phenomenon, reproduced on a gigantic scale, 
from different causes, in the remote East, let no one grudge 
us this advantage from the consideration of the double-sided, 
contradictory aspect of the Eastern Churches, or the vigour 
and wide extension of the Eastern sects. And if ever the 
question, often agitated, should be brought to issue, and any 
changes should be attempted in the English Prayer-book, 
many scruples might be soothed by recurring to the model 
of the Eastern Church. What has never been received into 
the creeds or the services 1 of Churches venerable as those of 
Oriental Christendom, cannot by any sound argument be 
represented as indispensable to the character of the Church 
of England. 

' I die in the faith of the Catholic Church, before the 
disunion of East and West.' Such was the dying hope of 

' I allude to the passages relating to mediaeval and Latin, as distinct from 
Absolution in the Ordination and Vi>i- ancient and Catholic. (See p. 37.) The 
tation Services, and the adoption of the third is distinctly opposed to the Eastern 
Athanasian Creed. The first two are Church. (See Lecture VII.) 

E 



THE LESSONS OF 



LECT. I. 



good Bishop Ken. 1 It was an aspiration which probably no 
one but an English Churchman would have uttered. We 
may not be able to go along with the whole of the feeling 
involved in the thought. But it expresses a true belief that 
in the Church of England there is a ground of antiquity, of 
freedom; and of common sense, on which we may calmly 
and humbly confront both of the great divisions of Christen- 
dom, without laying ourselves open to the charge of ignorant 
presumption, or of learned trifling, or of visions that can 
never be realised. We know, and it is enough to know, that 
the Gospel, the original Gospel, which came from the East 
and now rules in the West, is large enough to comprehend 
them both. 



NOTE ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE PROCESSION 
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

The question of the Double Procession furnishes so many illus- 
trations of the points laid down in the previous Lecture, that it 
may be well to devote a few words to its history. 

1. It brings out forcibly the contrast noticed above between 
the systematising, innovating tendency of the West, and the 
simpler and more conservative tendency of the East. The 
Western insertion of the words ' from the Son ' (filioque) arose 
in the Spanish Church, from the logical development of the 
Athanasian doctrine against the Arian Visigoths. The Greek 
refusal to admit these words arose from the repugnance to any 
change in the decrees or creeds laid down in the early Councils, 
analogous to that which animated the Russian dissenters against 
Nicon and Peter. (See Lecture XII.) 

2. It well exemplifies the double-sided aspect of most theo- 
logical doctrines. Each of the two statements expresses a truth 
which the other overlooks or omits. In the original statement 
of the Nicene or Constantinopolitan Creed, which makes the 
Spirit to proceed from the Father alone, is the necessary safe- 



1 Life of Ken, by a Layman, p. 509. 



LECT. I. 



THE EASTERN CHURCH. 



SI 



guard of the abstract unity of the Godhead. It is urged by the 
Eastern Church that to make the Spirit proceed equally from 
both the Persons in the Trinity, is to imply two principles or 
originating powers in the Divine Essence. In the Western view, 
which associates the Son with the Father, it is maintained that 
the addition of the disputed words was needed to assert the 
identity of the Father and the Son in all the acts of redemption, 
and especially the identity of the Spirit of Christ with the Spirit 
of God. Both statements may be reconciled if the former is 
understood as applying to the abstract and eternal essence of 
the Deity, the latter to the Divine operations in the redemption 
of man. If the word 'proceed' (eWopeueo-^ai) be used in a 
strictly scientific, or, it may be added, biblical sense, then the 
Greeks are in the right. If it be used according to popular 
usage, then the Latins are not in the wrong. 

3. It is an excellent specimen of the race of ' extinct contro- 
versies.' For nearly a thousand years it seemed to the contend- 
ing parties to be of such importance as to justify the rent 
between East and West. It was probably the chief reason for 
cherishing the Athanasian Creed and the anathemas peculiar to 
that confession (see Lecture VII.). By the disputes which it 
engendered at the Council of Florence, it largely contributed to 
the fall of the Byzantine Empire. The capture of Constantinople 
on Whitsunday was regarded in the West as a Divine judgment 
on the East for its heresy in regard to the Spirit, whose festival 
was thus awfully vindicated. Yet now the whole question is laid 
completely to rest. In the West it is never seriously discussed. 
In the East it is remembered, and will never, perhaps, be for- 
gotten ; but it is more as a point of honour than of faith ; it is 
more the mode of our Western innovation, than the substance 
of our doctrine, that rouses their indignation. 1 

1 For the details of the doctrine, see ii. 1154. Mouravieff, Questions Reli-* 
Adam Zernikoff, as quoted by Neale, gieuses, 860. 



82 



52 



THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. 



LECT. II. 



LECTURE II. 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. 



The authorities for the Council of Nicaea are as follows : — 
I. The original documents. 



1. Letter of Constantine, convoking the Bishops from 

Ancyra. (Mr. Harris Cowper, Analecta Nicaena, 21.) 

2. Letter of Constantine to the Bishops, denouncing the 

books of Arius. 

3. Letter of Constantine against Arius. 

4. Letter of Constantine to the Bishops, containing the 

decree on Easter. 

5. Letter of the Council to the Church of Alexandria, on 

the three points of debate. 

6. Letter of Eusebius to the Church of Caesarea, Theod. 

i., explaining his subscriptions. 

7. Letters of Eusebius and Theognis, praying for readmis- 

sion. 

8. Letter of Constantine against Eusebius. 

9. Letter of Constantine to Theodotus, warning him 

against Eusebius. 

d. Apocryphal canons, subscriptions, letters, &c, given 
in Mansi's Councils, ii. 710 — 107 1. 

II. Eyewitnesses. 

a. Eusebius of Caesarea in the Life of Constantine, iii. 
4 — 24; and in his Letter to the Church of Caesarea. 
(Theod. i. 9.) 



a. The Creed. 

b. The Twenty Canons 

c. The Official Letters. 



Contained in Mansi's Councils, ii. 625 
— 701, and the historians given below. 



LSCT. II. 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



53 



b. Athanasius. 

1. The Tract on the Decrees of the Nicene Council. 

2. Epistle to the Africans. 

3. Orations against Arians. 

4. On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia. 

c. Eustathius of Antioch. A short extract in Theod. i. 8. 

d. Auxano, a Novatian Presbyter, who had been present 
as a boy. He told his experience to Socrates. (H. E. 

a. 1.) 

e. Old people alive in Jerome's time, whom he had seen. 
(Adv. Lucif. c. 20.) 

III. Historians of the next generation. 

1. Rufinus. (H. E. i. 1 — 6.) a.d. 380 — 401. 

2. Ambrose. (De Fide.) a.d. 333 — 397. 
(These are the only two Western authorities.) 

3. Epiphanius. (Haer. lxix.) a.d. 360 — 401. 

4. Socrates. (H. E. i. 4 — 14.) a.d. 380 — 440. 

5. Sozomen. (H. E. i. 15 — 28.) a.d. 380— 443. 

6. Philostorgius. (Arian Fragments.) a.d. 350 — 425. 

7. Theodoret (H. E. i. 1 — 13.) a.d. 394 — 458. 

8. The lost history of the Council of Nicsea (in Syriac) 
by Maruthas, Bishop of Tagrit or Maipherkin, in Meso- 
potamia (a.d. 410), ' Opus valde aureum: sed proh do- 
lor! necdum inventum? (Asseman. Biblioth. Orient, 
i. p. 177, 195.) 

IV. Later Historians. 

1. Gelasius of Cyzicus. (Fifth century.) Acts of the 
Council, filled with imaginary speeches. The book 
professes to be founded on an old MS. in his father's 
house. 

2. 'Eutychius,' otherwise 'Sayd Ibn Batrik,' of Cairo. 
a.d. 876 — 950. Arabic Annals of Alexandria, printed 
by Pococke, and partly edited by Selden. 

3. Gregory the Presbyter. (Tenth century.) ' Panegyric 



54 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^A. 



LECT. II, 



of the Nicene Fathers,' printed in the Novum Auc- 
tarium of Combefis, vol. ii. p. 547. 
4. Nicephorus. a.d. 1390— 1450. H. E. from a.d. i — 
610.) 

V. Modern Historians. — Of these may be selected : 

a. English. 

1. Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall,' c. 21. 

2. Dean Milman's ' History of Christianity under the 

Empire,' vol. ii. pp. 431 — 448. 

3. Some account of the Council of Nicaea,' by Bishop 

Kaye. (1853.) 

b. German. 

1. I trig's ' History of the Council ' (a brief documentary 

summary). (1644 — 17 10.) 

2. Walch's ' History of Heresies,' vol. ii, 385 — 689. (1762.) 

3. Hefele's 'History of the Councils,' book ii. (1855.) 

c. French. 

1. Tillemont's ' Ecclesiastical History,' vol. vi. (1637 — 

1698.) 

2. Fleury's 'Ecclesiastical History,' book iii. (1640 — 

1723.) 

3. Albert Prince de Broglie's ' History of the Church and 

the Empire in the Fourth Century,' c. iv. (1857.) 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA AND THE SEVEN GENERAL COUNCILS. 

The earliest important development of the Eastern Church 
is the First General Council of Nicaea. This event I propose 
to describe with all the particularity of detail of which it is 
capable ; to describe it in such a way that it may remain 
fixed in our memories ; to describe it as it appeared to those 
who lived at the time. In this opening Lecture it will be 
my object to vindicate the place which I have assigned to it 
in that portion of Ecclesiastical History which I have under- 
taken to treat. 



LECT. II. 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. 



55 



I. On the one hand we must consider its peculiar con- 
nection with the Eastern Church. This connection it has in 
common with the first Seven General Councils. 

Oriental 

character The locality of these great assemblies was always 
Seven Gene- Eastern ; in most instances immediately in the 
rai Councils, neighborhood 0 f tn e centre of Eastern Christen- 
dom, within reach of Constantinople. Their decrees were 
written, their debates were conducted, not in Latin, but in 
Greek. They are still honoured by the Oriental Church with 
a reverence which hardly any Western Council has received 
in the West. The series of the Seven Councils is the con- 
stant subject of the sacred paintings in the cathedrals of 
Russia, in the monasteries of Athos, in the basilica 1 of 
Bethlehem. Each can be traced by its peculiar arrange- 
ments, or by the Emperor or Empress who presides. Once 
a year, on the first Sunday 2 in Lent, called Orthodox Sunday, 
all the Seven Councils are commemorated in one, the 
anniversary of the last : the service and ceremonial of the 
Church is made to reproduce the image of the ancient 
synods — bishops, presbyters, and deacons seated round in 
the semicircular form in which the old pictures represent 
them. The Eastern bishops still promise in the service of 
consecration to observe their decrees ; and not only is their 
memory preserved in learned or ecclesiastical circles, but 
even illiterate peasants, to whom, in the corresponding class 
of life in Spain or Italy, the names of Constance and Trent 
would probably be quite unknown, are well aware that their 
Church reposes on the basis of the Seven Councils, and retain 
a hope that they may yet live to see an eighth General Council, 
in which the evils of the time will be set straight. The sub- 
jects discussed in the assemblies, and the occasions which 
called them together, were especially Eastern and Greek. 
This could hardly have been otherwise. The whole force 



1 At Bethlehem and in Russia, they 
are on the south side of the nave. At 
Athos they are usually in the cloister or 
outer narthex. The most remarkable of 



these representations is in the Iberian 
monastery. 

B Neale, Hist, of the Eastern Church, 
Introd. ii. 867. 



56 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA 



LECT. II. 



and learning of early Christianity was in the East. A general 
Council in the West would have been almost an absurdity. 
With the exception of the few writers of North Africa, there 
was no Latin defender of the faith. With the exception of 
Tertullian, there was not a single early heretic of eminence 
in the West. The controversies on which the Councils 
turned all moved in the sphere of Grecian and Oriental 
metaphysics. They were such as no Western mind could 
have originated. 

What may be said of all the Seven Councils, is true of the 
earliest and greatest of them. The Council of Nicaea was 
and of the held not in a Western but an Eastern city. Of 
Council tne three hundred and eighteen bishops whose 
especially, subscriptions were affixed to its decrees, only eight 
at most came from the West. The language of its Creed is 
not only not Latin, but is almost untranslatable into Latin. 
Grecised forms have been adopted for some of its more 
subtle expressions. 1 Others have been modified in order to 
be accommodated to their new garb. The one phrase 
introduced by the Western Church, 'filioque,' 2 was only 
introduced gradually, irregularly, and reluctantly in the 
West, and has never been admitted into the East. In the 
Western Church, the ancient Latin, commonly called the 
' Apostles' Creed,' has been long since overlaid by later 
documents : by the creed of Pius V. in the Church of 
Rome, by the numerous Confessions of Augsburg, London, 
Westminster, Geneva, in the Protestant Churches. But 
throughout the Eastern Church the Nicene Creed is still 
the one bond of faith. It is still recited in its original 
tongue by the peasants of Greece. Its recitation is still the 
culminating point of the service in the Church of Russia. 
The great bell of the Kremlin tower sounds during the 
whole time that its words are chanted. It is repeated aloud 
in the presence of the assembled people by the Czar at his 



1 e. g. Usia (for oi/cria) ; Homousion ; Dominum vivificantem (for to nvpiov, 
to $wo7U>iovi/). 2 See Lecture 1. p. 50. 



lect. ii. AN EASTERN COUNCIL. 



57 



coronation. It is worked in pearls on the robes of the 
highest dignitaries of Moscow. One of the main grounds of 
schism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from the 
Established Church of Russia 1 was, that the old dissenters 
were seized with the belief that the patriarch Nicon had 
altered one of the sacred words of the original text of the 
creed. The anniversary of the Council is still celebrated 
on special days. Every article of the Nicene Creed is 
exhibited, according to the fashion of the Russian Church, 
in little pictures, and thus familiarised to the popular 
mind. 

It is necessary to dwell on the Oriental character of the 
Nicene Council and Creed, because we cannot rightly un- 
derstand it without bearing in mind its peculiar origin ; 
and also, because, in justice to the Eastern Church, we must 
remember that whatever value we attach to this venerable 
confession, whatever reverence we pay to this great Council, 
is due, not to our own sphere of Christendom, not to the 
Church of Rome, but to that remote region with which we 
have now hardly any concern. The position of the Nicene 
Creed in our Liturgy is a perpetual memorial of the distant 
East. Other like memorials remain in the ' Kyrie eleison,' 
the ' Gloria in excelsis,' parts of the ' Te Deum,' and the 
prayer of S. Chrysostom. But more remarkable than these, 
as a link uniting our worship with that of Alexandria and 
Constantinople, is the creed which was elaborated by the 
Egyptian and Syrian Bishops at Nicaea. 

II. But I have also to show that this Oriental assembly, 
General this Greek confession, have a place in the universal 
IheSef history of the world. 

Councils, t 0 a cer tain degree, and perhaps by a kind 
of prescriptive right, this general interest attaches, as their 
name would imply, to all the Eastern Councils to which by 
the Greek, the Latin, or the Protestant Churches the title of 
* general ' or ' oecumenical ' has been conceded. The eight 

1 See Lecture XIII. 



58 



THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. 



LECT. II. 



Councils, as enumerated by the Latins, the seven as enume- 
rated by the Greeks, all turned on controversies producing 
more important effects than have followed on any action of 
the Oriental Church in later times. The doctrines of the first 
four were raised by the Emperor Justinian to the level of the 
Holy Scriptures, and their decrees to the rank of Imperial 
laws; 1 and they have even received a limited acknowledgment 
in the Church of England. It is well known than in one of 
the earliest acts of Elizabeth, which undoubtedly has con- 
siderable authority as expressive of the mind of the foundress 
of the present constitution of our Church, the Councils of 
Nicsea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon are raised 
as judges of heresy to the same level as ' the High Court of 
Parliament, with the assent of the English clergy in their 
convocation.' 2 Even at the present day, in spite of the vast 
accumulation of dogmatic statements in our popular Western 
theology, it is acknowledged by many English churchmen 
that 'besides the decrees of the four General Councils, 
nothing is to be required as matter of belief necessary for 
salvation.' 3 

Still we cannot say that the importance of all these early 
Councils is fully recognised. Their official decrees have 
never gained a place, and are never even mentioned, in our 
formularies. The fifth, sixth, and seventh are rarely named 
by Protestant theologians. The fourth (that of Chalcedon) 
is, as we have seen, rejected by a large part of the East. 
The third (of Ephesus) is repudiated by the Chaldaean 
Christians ; and its distinguishing formula, 'The Mother 
of God,' has never been frankly accepted by Protestant 
Churches. The Council of Constantinople was avowedly 
only an Eastern assembly. Not a single Western bishop was 
present ; and its oecumenical character, after having been 



1 1 Dogmata, sicut sanctas scripturas, 
accipimus, et regulas sicut leges, obser- 
vamus.' — In Authenticis, collatione ix. 
tit. vi. De Ecclesiasticis Regulis et 
Privilegiis. (Routh's Opusc. i. 363.) 



2 1 Eliz. c. 1. 

3 Bishop Taylor's 1 Advice to his 
Clergy,' quoted in the Enchiridion Theo- 
logicum, i. 348, and in the Oxford Con- 
troversial Sermons of 1856. 



LECT. II. ITS GENERAL INTEREST. 



59 



entirely passed over by the. Council of Ephesus, was only 
tardily acknowledged by the Council of Chalcedon. 

But with the Nicene assembly it is otherwise. Alone of 
all the Councils, it still retains a hold on the mass of Chris- 
and of the tendom. Its creed, as we just now saw, is the only 
council creed accepted throughout the Universal Church, 
especially. The Apostles' Creed, and the Athanasian Creed 
have never been incorporated into the ritual of the Greek 
Church. But the Nicene Creed, Greek and Eastern though 
it be, has a place in the liturgies and confessions of all 
Western Churches, at least down to the end of the sixteenth 
century. It was regarded at the time, and long afterwards, 
even by Councils which chafed under the acknowledgment, 
as a final settlement of the fundamental doctrines of Chris- 
tianity ; and so in a certain sense it has been regarded by 
many theologians of later times. 

And, if we examine the relations of this Council to the 
history of the period, its superiority to the later Councils 
will still hold good. 

i. Eutychianism, Nestorianism, Apollinarianism, repre- 
sent sects which, except in the remote East, have not, nor 
Historical ^ave ever k a d> any lasting significance. But the 
importance Arian sect, the occasion of the Nicene Council, 
' though it also has now long been laid to sleep, yet 
for three hundred years after the date of its origin was a 
considerable power, both political and religious ; and this, 
not only in the Eastern regions of its birth, but in our 
own Western and Teutonic nations. The whole of the 
vast Gothic population which descended on the Roman 
Empire, so far as it was Christian at all, held to the faith 
of the Alexandrian heretic. Our first Teutonic version of 
the Scriptures was by an Arian missionary, Ulfilas. The 
first conqueror of Rome, Alaric, the first conqueror of 
Africa, Genseric, were Arians. Theodoric the Great, King 
of Italy, and hero of the Nibelungen Lied, was an Arian. 
The vacant place in his massive tomb at Ravenna is a 



6o 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA 



LECT. II. 



witness of the vengeance which the Orthodox took on his 
memory, when on their triumph they tore down the 
porphyry vase in which his Arian subjects had enshrined 
his ashes. The ferocious Lombards were Arians till they 
began to be won over by their queen Theodelinda, at the 
close of the sixth century. But the most remarkable strong- 
holds of Arianism were the Gothic kingdoms of Spain and 
Southern France. In France, it needed all the power of 
Clovis, the one orthodox chief of the barbarian nations, to 
crush it on the plains of Poitiers. In Spain, it expired only 
in the sixth century, when it was renounced by King Recared 
in the basilica of Toledo. Of the intensity of the struggle 
between the ancient expiring heresy and the new triumphant 
orthodoxy, three memorials still remain in all Western litur- 
gies, including our own. One is the constant recitation of 
what was then considered the orthodox formula — ' Gloria 
Patri, et Filio et Spiritui Sancto' — at the close of every 
psalm. Another is the practice (adopted from the Eastern 
Church) of reciting the Nicene Creed in its present place 
before the administration of the Eucharist, to guard that 
ordinance against Arian intruders. The third is the inser- 
tion of the words { filioque ' into the Creed as an additional 
safeguard for the Creed itself. 1 

It implies an immense vitality inherent in the orthodox 
doctrine established at Nicsea, that it should have won its 
way against such formidable antagonists, and should have 
securely seated itself in the heart of the Church for so 
many subsequent centuries. 

Constantine, indeed, and even at intervals Athanasius 
himself, endeavoured to moderate the zeal to which the 
eager partisans on both sides pursued their quarrel at 
the time ; and looking back from later times, Erasmus 2 in 
the Reformation, and Bishop Kaye in our own age, have 

1 See Lecture VI L and Ffou Ikes' of Recared and Charlemagne is fully 

Letter on the ' Church's Creed, or the brought out. 

Crown's Creed,' in which the insertion 2 See Ittig's Council of NicEea, § 

of the clause filioque under the influence xlvii. 



lect. ii. AS OPPOSED TO ARIANISM. 



61 



regarded the controversy as carried to a pitch beyond any 
bounds which faith or wisdom could reasonably sanction. 
But the importance of its actual effects at the time, and for 
some centuries afterwards, on the opinions and the feelings 
of Christendom, can hardly be overstated, and the final 
result is one of those victories which go far to justify the 
cause itself. 

Nor has the interest of the controversy entirely ceased 
with the final extermination of the Arian sect by the sword 
of Clovis, and the conversion of Recared and Theodelinda.. 
From that time no doubt the continuous existence of the 
Arian tradition was broken ; and no system of opinions 
which has since arisen can be considered as in any true 
historical sense the representative of the old Alexandrian 
and Gothic heresy. The Arianism (as it is sometimes 
called) of Milton, of Whiston, and of Sir Isaac Newton, 
differed in three important particulars (which shall shortly 
be described 1 hereafter) from the system of Arius and 
Eusebius. Nothing is more needed in ecclesiastical his- 
tory than to guard against the illusion of inferring an 
identity of belief and feeling, merely from an identity of 
name. The Anabaptists of the nineteenth century are 
hardly more different from the Anabaptists of the sixteenth, 
than the Arians of the seventeenth century were from the 
Arian s of the fourth. 

Still the fundamental principle of the old Arianism, as 
separate from the logical form and the political organisation 
which it assumed, has hardly ever departed from the Church. 2 
It has penetrated where we should least expect to find it. 
The theological opinions of many who have thought them- 
selves, and been thought by others, most orthodox, have 
been deeply coloured by the most conspicuous tendencies of 
the doctrine of Arius. Often men have been attacked as 
heretics, only because they agreed too closely with the 



1 See Lecture III. controversy, I shall enlarge in Lecture 

' On this more general aspect of the VII. 



62 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA 



LECT. II. 



doctrine of Athanasius. * Ingemuit orbis et miratus est se 
esse Arianum,' is a process which has been strangely re- 
peated, more than once, in the course of ecclesiastical his- 
tory. To track such identity under seeming differences, 
and such differences under seeming identity, is a duty 
prescribed to the Christian theologian by the very highest 
authority. 

2. But over and above the magnitude of the question 
discussed between Arius and Athanasius, there are other 
considerations which make the first Nicene Council a fruitful 
field of ecclesiastical study. 

It was the earliest great historical event, so to speak, 
which had affected the whole Church since the close of the 
Apostolic age. In the two intervening centuries 

Importance . 

of the there had been many stirring incidents, two or three 
great writers, abundance of curious and instructive 
usages. But all was isolated and fragmentary. Even the 
persecutions are imperfectly known. We are still in the 
catacombs : here and there a light appears to guide us ; here 
and there is the authentic grave of a saint and a martyr, or 
the altar or picture of a primitive assembly ; but the regular 
course of ecclesiastical history is still waiting to begin, and 
it does not begin till the Council of Nicaea. Then, for the 
first time, the Church meets the Empire face to face. The 
excitement, the shock, the joy, the disappointment, the hope 
of the meeting communicate themselves to us. It is one of 
those moments in the history of the world which occur once, 
and cannot be repeated. It is the last point whence we can 
look back on the dark, broken road of the second and third 
centuries, of which I have just spoken. It is the first point 
whence we can look forward to the new and comparatively 
smooth and easy course which the Church will have to pursue 
for two centuries, indeed, in some sense, for twelve centuries 
onwards. The line of demarcation between the Nicene and 
the ante-Nicene age, is the most definite that we shall find 
till we arrive at the invasion of the barbarians. 



lect. ii. AS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW EPOCH. 63 



The form, too, which this decisive event assumed, is me- 
morable as the first of a series of events which have now 
become extinct. The Council of Nicaea is the first 
Sundus 6 ' General Council '—the first of that long series of 
ImpS S of e a' eighteen synods which ended, and in all probability 
General h as ended for ever, in the Council of Trent. In 

Council. / 

the church in which was held the last session of 
that latest of the Councils, is a vaunting inscription, which 
unconsciously conveys the truth that this was the end of the 
succession, of which it brought up the rear : — 



* Sacra limina ingressus 
Infra qu^ postremum 
Spiritus Sanctus 
DjEUS jETERNUS munificus 
solator ecclesi^e catholics 
Per concilium magnum legitimum 

Oracula effudit, 
quisquis es 
mltte tibi pr^eoptari 
nlcmam, constantinopolim, 
Chalcedonem, Lugdunum, 
vlennam, constantiam, 

Florentiam. 
Roma ipsa hoc nomine 
tlbi par non majus dedit.' 



Wide as was the difference between the first and the last, 
yet still there is a family likeness, which renders each an 
illustration of the other ; and which, therefore, renders the 
study of any one of them a study of all. Of all the institu- 
tions recorded in ecclesiastical history they are, or ought to 
be, the most significant. And, if the first Council of Nicaea 
be the one which, by its antiquity and its sanctity, commands 
the most general homage, we shall have in its sessions the 
advantage of observing a Council under the most favourable 
circumstances. 



6 4 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA 



LECT. II. 



There are three characteristics which were fixed in the 
Council of Nicsea, and which it shared more or less with all 
that followed. 

a) First, as its name implies, it is the earliest example of 
a large assembly professing to represent the voice and the 
conscience of the whole Christian community. Meetings 
and synods there had been before, but this was the first open 
inauguration of them in the face of day. Its title at the 
time was, in contradistinction to all which had gone before — 
' The Great and Holy Synod.' 

It was the decisive sanction of the doctrine that a free and 
numerous assembly is the best channel for arriving at Chris- 
Deiiberative ^ an trutn - Obviously this was not the necessary 
character of or only course to have been pursued. In heathen 
ages, and also in many Christian ages, decisions 
have been sought in particular spots or from particular 
persons, oracles, hermits, shrines, gifted men, sovereigns, 
bishops, popes. But none of these courses were adopted in 
the first times of the Church. Even as far back as the 
Apostolic age the most important question which agitated 
the Christian community was determined, not, indeed, by a 
gathering of different Churches, but still by an assembly in 
some respects far more democratic than any which succeeded. 
The Council of Jerusalem consisted not only of the apostles 
and elders, but of the brethen also. It was a decision of the 
whole Church of Jerusalem, laity as well as clergy. This, 
as far as we know, was the last instance of such an extension 
of the legislative body of the Church. But the principle of 
a popular as distinguished from an individual authority 
was recognised in all the provincial synods, and was finally 
adopted on the grandest scale at the Nicene Council. 
Freedom and deliberation were thus proclaimed to be the 
best means of deciding a question of high Christian doc- 
trine. Whether the means succeeded or not, is not now 
the question But it is remarkable that in that age of des- 
potism and political inactivity it should have been adopted 



lect. ii. AS A DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLY. 



65 



at all. As it has been said that the early Christian bishops 
were the only likenesses of the tribunes of the ancient 
Roman republic, so it may be said that the Councils were 
the only likenesses of the ancient Roman senates. The old 
spirit of liberty, which had died away or been suppressed 
everywhere else, revived, or was continued, in the ecclesias- 
tical synods of the Empire, just as now in France, free dis- 
cussion, banished from all other places, still maintains its 
hold in the literary and scientific meetings of the Institute. 
The Christian Church is not the only religious system which 
has had the courage to intrust its highest interests to the 
decision of large and, at times, tumultuous assemblies ; it is 
one of the curious parallels often observed between Chris- 
tianity and the outward forms of the wide-spread religion of 
Buddhism, that there also general councils 1 have been 
called to decide questions of faith and discipline. But this is 
the only parallel. Nothing of the kind existed in ancient 
Paganism, and nothing of the kind has arisen in modern 
Mahomedanism. Whatever might be the disadvantages 
and weaknesses attendant upon the institution, the Christian 
Church must have the credit of having made the effort of 
giving to all its members a voice in the settlement of its 
highest interests, and of uniting all the various elements of 
which it was composed, from time to time, for one common 
purpose. 

Councils are also the first precedents of the principle of 
representative government. The Nicene Council, like those 
which followed, and (with the exception of that recorded in 
the Acts of the Apostles) like those which preceded, consisted 
chiefly, if not exclusively, of bishops. But the bishops at 
that time were literally the representatives 2 of the Christian 
communities over which they presided. They were elected 
by universal suffrage, and they considered themselves re- 
sponsible to their constituents, to a degree which at times re- 

1 For the Buddhist councils see held B.C. 543 ; the second B.C. 443 ; the 
Tumour's translation of the Maha- third, B.C. 309. 

wanso, i. 11—43. The first council was 8 cfroAeis. Mansi, Concil. vii. 58. 

F 



66 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA 



LECT. II. 



minds us, even painfully, of the vices of modern constitutional 
government. Eusebius felt himself bound to explain to his 
diocese at Caesarea the grounds on which he had given his 
vote at Nicaea ; and at Chalcedon, so intense was the fear of 
their countrymen entertained by the Egyptian bishops, that 
they threw themselves in an agony at the feet of the Council, 
with the cry of ' Spare us — kill us here if you will — but do 
not send us home to certain death. The whole province of 
Egypt will rise against us.' 1 

b) Another characteristic of a General Council first exem- 
plified at Nicaea is stated in somewhat polemical language, 
but still with substantial truth, in the well-known words of 
the 2 1 st of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of Eng- 
land : ' General Councils may not be gathered together but 
by the commandment and will of Princes.' 

What the Article here states controversially as against the 
Church of Rome, was a recognised fact and principle in the 
historical constitution of a General Council. It was almost 
implied in the meaning of the word. An ' CEcumenical 
Synod,' that is, an 'Imperial gathering' from the whole 
oiKovfjiivr], or Empire (for this was the technical meaning of 
the word, even in the Greek 2 of the new Testament), could 
be convened only by the Emperor. This was assumed as a 
matter of course in the case of Nicaea, and indeed of all the 
Eastern Councils. Not only no single bishop, but no single 
prince 3 (unless we take the word in its most ancient sense), 
was sufficient to convene a general assembly from all parts 
of that vast territory. A Council was part, as it were, of the 
original constitution of the Christian Empire ; and however 
much disputed afterwards in the entanglement of civil and 
ecclesiastical relations in the West, the principle has never 
been wholly abandoned. When the Western Empire fell, the 
Eastern Emperor still retained the inalienable right; and 



1 See Mansi, Concil. vii. 57. 

2 See Luke ii. 1. 

3 We must bear in mind, that in the 
sixteenth century, the word 'prince' 



was used for 1 sovereign,' as e.g., in the 
case of Elizabeth, and probably it was 
here used in its classical sense for the 
' Princeps ' or Roman Emperor. 



lect. II. AS AN IMPERIAL ASSEMBLY. 



6 7 



when the Eastern Emperor became inaccessible to the needs 
of European Christendom, and a new ' Holy Roman Empire' 
was erected in the West, then the Emperor of Germany (solely 
or, more properly, conjointly with his Byzantine brother) 
succeeded to the rights of Constantine. We shall see in the 
forms of the Council of Nicaea the earliest precedents, not so 
much of our ecclesiastical synods as of our parliaments, con- 
vened by the writ of the sovereign, opened by his personal 
presence, swayed by his personal wishes and advice. And if 
we look from the first to the fourth General Council, of 
which the forms are more fully preserved, and in which 
perhaps the independence both of the Roman citizen and of 
the Christian bishop had sunk to a lower pitch, we shall see 
in the reception of the Emperor Marcian and the Empress 
Pulcheria, who came with their whole court to ratify the 
decrees of Chalcedon, something more than a mere nominal 
presidency. The assembled Bishops exclaimed (and here I 
give the words as reported at the time) — ' To Marcian, the 
new Constantine, the new Paul, the new David, long years — 
long years to our sovereign lord David. . . . You are 
the peace of the world, long life. Your faith will defend 
you. Thou honourest Christ. He will defend thee. Thou 
hast established orthodoxy. ... To the august Empress, 
many years. You are the lights of orthodoxy. . . . Or- 
thodox from her birth, God will defend her. Defender of 
the faith, may God defend her. Pious, orthodox enemy of 
heretics, God will defend her. Thou hast persecuted all the 
heretics. May the evil eye be averted from your Empire. 
Worthy of the faith, worthy of Christ So are the faithful 
sovereigns honoured. . . . Marcian is the new Constan- 
tine, Pulcheria is the new Helena. . . . Your life is the 
safety of all ; your faith is the glory of the churches. By 
thee the world is at peace ; by thee the orthodox faith is 
established; by thee heresy ceases to be: long life to the 
Emperor and Empress.' 1 



1 Mansi, vii. 170. 



68 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA 



I.ECT. II. 



This secular character (I use the word in no invidious 
sense), thus stamped upon the institution of Councils from 
the first, they never lost. Western Christendom, separated 
from the Byzantine Imperial Court, and never completely 
subjugated to its own Imperial head in Germany, was not 
equally dependent on the Emperor for its general assemblies. 
But they were still cast in the same Imperial mould. The 
sanction of the Emperor was still required. 1 An appeal to a 
General Council was the half-temporal, half- spiritual weapon 
which the Emperors and Kings of Europe always held in 
reserve as a rejoinder to a Papal interdict. Even so sub- 
missive a sovereign as Philip II. did not hesitate to use 
the threat to the refractory Paul IV. Even so late as the 
Council of Constance, the Emperor Sigismund appeared in 
person. In the Council of Trent, the ambassadors of all the 
courts of Europe were there to represent their absent masters. 
The Imperial ambassador sits in the highest place, the French 
the next, and the Spaniard, unwilling to concede the second 
place to any one but the most Catholic king, sits proudly aloof 
in the centre. 

It is important to notice this control and admixture of 
secular and lay authority, not only allowed but courted by 
the highest and most venerable of ecclesiastical synods, be- 
cause it may tend to reconcile sensitive churchmen of our 
own country to a like control over English convocations, or 
Scottish general assemblies. 2 It further reminds us how the 
Councils of the Church, in the time of their grandeur, were 
mixed up with the general history of the world, and thus 
became the expression of the age. The Council of Nicaea 
was, in the eyes of its contemporaries, far the most important 
gathering that had taken place in the Roman Empire in the 
time of Constantine, or even since the virtual suppression of 



1 The first Pope, said to have called 
a Council, is Pelagius II. a.d. 587. But 
the epistle in which the right is claimed 
is a forgery. Robertson, i. 547, 2nd ed.) 

a See ' The Councils of the Church,' 



by Dr. Pusey — written with the express 
intention of allaying the alarms of Eng- 
lish Churchmen, occasioned by the theo- 
logical decisions of the Judicial Com- 
mittee of the Privy Council. 



lect. ii. AS AN IMPERIAL ASSEMBLY. 



6 9 



the Roman senate. The Council of Constance was at least 
as closely interwoven with all the passions and feelings of the 
fifteenth century, as the Congress of Vienna could have been 
with those of the nineteenth. It is well also to remember 
that this intimate connection of the Councils with the consti- 
tution of the ancient Empire furnishes one strong ground for 
the prediction, which I ventured to make just now, that in 
all probability a General Council, such as those of former 
times, will never be held again. According to the only pre- 
cedents universally recognised, an (Ecumenical Synod cannot 
be summoned except by the Emperor, and the ' Emperor,' 
in that sense of the word in which alone he could be made 
available, has ceased to exist There is now no longer an 
Empire of the West : the modern Empire of Austria and 
the modern Empire of France are merely separate kingdoms 
under lofty titles. There is, in a truer sense, an Emperor 
of the East. But no one will suppose it probable that the 
authority of the Russian Czar would ever be recognised in 
the kingdoms or Churches of the West, even putting aside 
the intense ecclesiastical animosity with which the Latin 
Church would regard any such attempt. General Councils 
were part and parcel of the Imperial Constitution of Europe 
— but with the dissolution of that venerable fabric they have, 
we may be almost sure, been laid aside in their ancient form 
never to reappear. 

c) And this prepares us to consider the remaining portion 
of the somewhat harsh, but still, as I said, incontestable, 
description of them in the language of the twenty-first 
Article. * When they be gathered together ' (at that time, we 
may here observe, the Article contemplated the recurrence 
of the event as not entirely impossible), ' forasmuch as they 
be assemblies of men, whereof all be not governed with the 
Spirit and word of God, they may err, and sometimes have 
erred, even in things pertaining unto God.' It is absolutely 
necessary to claim the freedom of criticism on which these 
words insist. With every disposition to honour these as- 



7o 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA 



LECT. II. 



semblies, — with every desire to make allowance for their 
Fallible weaknesses, and to esteem the results of their la- 
Ge a ner C ai er ° f ko urs > — lt is impossible to understand them rightly, 
Councils. or even to do justice to their merits, without re- 
membering throughout that they were assemblies of fallible 
men, swayed by the good and evil influences to which all 
assemblies are exposed. 

We need not adopt the extreme terms of condemnation 
into which Gregory Nazianzen 1 was driven, irritated, no 
doubt, by the excesses which he himself witnessed :— ' I 
never yet saw a council of bishops come to a good end.' ' I 
salute them afar off, since I know how troublesome they are.' 
' 1 never more will sit in those assemblies of cranes and 
geese.' It is enough to remember, in the wise language of 
Dean Milman, how almost inevitable is the disappointment 
which we experience on finding the repulsive aspect which 
Christianity assumes in the very assemblies which should 
represent it in its best and most attractive form. 'A 
* General Council,' he justly observes, 2 'is not the cause 
'but the consequence of religious dissension. It is un- 
' necessary, and could hardly be convoked, but on extra- 
' ordinary occasions to settle some questions which have 
'already violently disorganised the peace of Christendom. 
'It is a field of battle in which a long train of animosities 
'and hostilities is to come to an issue. Men, therefore, 
' meet with all the excitement, the estrangement, the jealousy, 
' the antipathy, engendered by a fierce and obstinate con- 
troversy. They meet to triumph over their adversaries, 
'rather than dispassionately to investigate truth. Each is 
' committed to his opinions, each exasperated by opposition, 
'each supported by a host of intractable followers, each 
'probably with exaggerated notions of the importance of 
' the question, and that importance seems to increase, since 
'it has demanded the decision of a general assembly of 
' Christendom.' 



1 Ep. 124, 136 ; Carm. xvii. 91. 



s Latin Christianity, i. 156. 



LECT. II. 



AS A MIXED ASSEMBLY. 



71 



Let us approach the Council of Nicaea with these humbler 
expectations, and we shall be agreeably surprised to find 
how many incidents of moderation and charity and sim- 
plicity it contains amidst much fierce animosity, and much 
pardonable enthusiasm. 

There is a well-known, perhaps somewhat flippant, passage 
in which Jortin remarks on the possible motives by which 
such an assembly would be influenced : — ' It may be,' he 
says, 'by reverence to the Emperor, or to his councillors 
' and favourites, or the fear of offending some great prelate 
4 (as the Bishop of Alexandria or of Rome), who had it in 
' his power to insult, vex, and plague all the bishops within 
1 and without his jurisdiction ; by the dread of passing for 
1 heretics, and of being calumniated, reviled, hated, anathe- 
'matised, excommunicated, imprisoned, banished, fined, 
' beggared, starved, if they refused to submit ; by the love 
c of peace and quiet ; by the hatred of contention ; by com- 
1 pliance with an active body and imperious spirit ; by a 
1 deference to the majority ; by a love of dictating and 
- domineering, of applause and respect ; by vanity and 
1 ambition ; by a total ignorance of the question in debate, 
* or a total indifference about it ; by private friendships ; 
1 by enmity and resentment ; by old prejudices ; by hopes of 
' gain ; by an indolent disposition ; by good nature and the 
1 fatigue of attending ; by the desire to be at home, &c, 
{ &c, &c.' 1 Many of these feelings may doubtless have 
been at work in the sittings of Nicaea ; indeed the passage 
must have been partly suggested by the enumeration of 
motives in the history of Eusebius. 2 But we have every 
reason to suppose that such passions had far less control 
over the Council of Nicaea than over those which followed. 
It would be easy to multiply instances of the crimes and 
follies which disfigured the Christian assemblies of later 
times. We need not dwell on the exceptional case of the 
murder of John Huss at Constance, or repeat how at the 

1 Remarks on Eccl. History, i. 188. 2 Eus. V.C. iii. 6. 



72 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA 



LECT. II. 



second Council of Ephesus the Bishop of Constantinople 
was trampled down and stamped to death by the Bishop of 
Alexandria. But it may be well to give one authentic scene 
from the Council of Chalcedon, in numbers and in dignity 
far the most distinguished of the Seven. 1 I quote from the 
Report of the Council itself. The moment is that of the 
Imperial officers ordering that Theodoret, the excellent 
Bishop of Cyrus, well known as the commentator and eccle- 
siastical historian, should enter the assembly : — ' And when 
'the most reverend Bishop Theodoret entered, the most 
'reverend the Bishops of Egypt, Illyria, and Palestine 
' shouted out — " Mercy upon us ! the faith is destroyed. 
' " The canons of the Church excommunicate him. Turn 
1 " him out ! turn out the teacher of Nestorius ! " On the 
'other hand, the most reverend the Bishops of the East, 
' of Thrace, of Pontus, and of Asia, shouted out — " We were 
' " compelled [at the former Council] to subscribe our names 
' " to blank papers ; we were scourged into submission. 
1 " Turn out the Manichaeans. Turn out the enemies of 
' " Flavian ; turn out the adversaries of the faith ! " Dio- 
' scorus, the most reverend Bishop of Alexandria, said — 
' " Why is Cyril to be turned out ? It is he whom Theodoret 
1 " has condemned." The most reverend the Bishops of the 
£ East shouted out — " Turn out the murderer Dioscorus. 
' " Who knows not the deeds of Dioscorus ? " . . . The 
1 most reverend the Bishops of Egypt, Illyria, and Palestine, 
' shouted out — " Long life to the Empress ! " The most 
1 reverend the Bishops of the East shouted out—" Turn out 
' " the murderers ! " The most reverend the Bishops of 
' Egypt shouted out — " The Empress turned out Nestorius ; 
' " long life to the Catholic Empress ! The Orthodox synod 
' " refuses to admit Theodoret." ' Theodoret then being at 
last received by the Imperial officers, and taking his place, 
the most reverend Bishops of the East shouted out — 
■ " He is worthy — worthy." The most reverend the Bishops 



1 Mansi, vi. 590, 591. 



LECT. II. 



AS A MIXED ASSEMBLY. 



73 



'of Egypt shouted out — "Don't call him bishop, he is no 

* " bishop. Turn out the fighter against God ; turn out the 

* " Jew." The most reverend the Bishops of the East shouted 

* out — " The Orthodox for the synod. Turn out the rebels ; 

* " turn out the murderers." The most reverend the Bishops 
'of Egypt — "Turn out the enemy of God. Turn out the 
' " defamer of Christ. Long life to the Empress, long life 
' " to the Emperor, long life to the Catholic Emperor ! 
' " Theodoret condemned Cyril. If we receive Theodoret, 
' " we excommunicate Cyril." ' 

At this point the Imperial Commissioners who were 
present put a stop to the clamour, as unworthy a meeting 
of Christian bishops. We shall, doubtless, agree with them. 
My object in recalling so scandalous a scene has been, first, 
that we may not form too high a standard of what we are 
to expect from the first Council ; secondly, that we may be 
the better able to do justice to its undoubted superiority over 
the conduct of the later assemblies. 

But we must not forget the good as well as the evil 
which the Councils — and not least that of Nicsea — shared 
with all large assemblies of fallible men everywhere ; 

Moderation , , . , .... 

of General namely, the unconscious moderation which springs 
Councils. u p f rom b rm g m g two parties face to face with each 
other. No doubt violent and extreme partisans are often 
exasperated against one another by personal contact and 
conflict. But the vast mass of intervening shades of opinion 
is by such meetings drawn more closely together. Probably 
no Council has separated without making some friends who 
were before enemies, and some friends closer than before. 
Such, in an eminent degree, was the express object and 
result of the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem. No doubt even 
then there was the separation between Paul and Barnabas, 
and the quarrel between Paul and Peter. But on the whole 
the assembly brought together, instead of dividing asunder, 
the true servants of Christ. It agreed to tolerate, without 
approving or condemning, the differences which it was 



74 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



LECT. II. 



called to adjudge. The Jewish Apostles gave the right hand 
of fellowship to the Apostle of the Gentiles. The Church 
of Jerusalem determined not to lay upon the Gentiles the 
yoke which it was willing to bear itself. Assemblies so 
minded, and so deciding, have doubtless been very rare. 
But both in intention and effect the Council of Nicasa partook 
largely of that first Apostolic example. The estimation in 
which we at this moment hold the writings of Eusebius of 
Caesarea, is a proof of the kindly feeling which then gathered 
round him and his party, and which has never since been 
entirely dissipated. The professed object of those who 
directed the decisions of the Council was to include as wide 
a number as possible ; and every succeeding Council and 
creed (with whatever provocation or justification for doing 
so) has yet been a narrowing of the basis on which the first 
Council took its stand. 

III. Such being the general interest of the Council of 
Nicaea, there are several peculiarities in its history which 
render the study of it instructive in detail. 

1. The original narratives are in great measure derived 
from contemporary sources. The Acts, indeed, or Reports 
Contempor- of the Council (such as are preserved in the case 
ary sources. Q f Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon), never 
existed, or have perished. But the decrees and the official 
letters of the Council and of the Emperor remain ; and we 
have the accounts, more or less perfect, of not less than four 
eye-witnesses. 

2. Both amongst these eye-witnesses, and amongst the 
later historians, we have the help which in all history, 
Sources on especially ecclesiastical history, is much to be 
both sides, desire^ Q f the representations of both sides. As 
in the history of the Council of Trent we have the double 
account of Pallavicini and Sarpi, so here we have the double 
account of Athanasius and Eusebius. Gibbon longs for a 
Sarpi at Nicaea. But, in fact, we have a Paul Sarpi, not 
indeed as regards wisdom or learning, but certainly as 



LECT. II. 



ITS SOURCES. 



75 



regards his indifference, if not hostility, to the successful party 
of the Council, in Eusebius himself. Without entering into 
the much-disputed question of the precise shade of his 
Arianism, there can be no doubt of his leaning to that side; 
and so far, therefore, it cannot be said that the defeated 
party have been left without a spokesman ; and on the same 
side we must add the fragments from the avowed Arian, 
Philostorgius. The Meletians, in like manner (to take a 
smaller section of the Council), are represented by Epi- 
phanius ; the Novatians, by the aged informant of Socrates. 
Of the three chief historians of the next generation, two 
(Socrates and Sozomen) are not clergymen, but laymen and 
lawyers ; and of these Socrates is at times quite remarkable 
for his philosophical candour ; and the third, Theodoret, 
although a bishop and a theologian, belonged to the moder- 
ate party in the Church, and had at one time been himself 
under a grave suspicion of heresy 

3. The legendary tales which have been formed on the 
basis of the historical facts have a twofold interest. They 
The legend we ^ re P resent those two classes which Arnold has 
described in speaking of the Roman annals, 1 
* equally remote from historical truth, but in all other respects 
'most opposite to each other ; the one imaginative but 
'honest, playing with facts, and converting them into a 
'wholly different form, but addressing itself also to a differ- 
' ent part of the mind ; not professing to impart exact 
'knowledge, but to quicken and raise the perception of 
' what is beautiful and noble ; the other, tame and fraudu- 
lent, deliberately corrupting truth, in order to minister to 
' national or individual vanity, but substituting in the place 
' of reality the representations of interested or servile false- 
'hood.' To the former of these classes belongs, in the 
old Roman history, the legend of the fall of Veii; in the 
history of Nicaea, the legends of the different saints who 
were present. To the latter belong, in the Pagan history, 

1 History of Rome, i. 39.3. 



7 6 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. 



LECT. II. 



the pretended victory of Camillus over the Gauls ; in the 
Christian history, the inventions intended to exalt the see 
of Rome, or to blacken the character of the Arians. 1 Both 
are instructive. The former convey to us a sense of the 
deep impression made by the Council on the popular mind. 
The latter exhibit to us what the history would have been 
(but is not) had it taken place according to the theories and 
wishes of later times. 

4. The details which, from whatever quarter, we thus gain 
of the Nicene Council are far more important than they 
its charac- wou ld be in any other Council. They disclose to 
ters - us a section of the different layers of society in 
that period. The effect of this is, that we share in the good 
fortune of those who attended the Council, and through 
their eyes become personally acquainted with many of the 
most famous personages of that age — some famous in all 
ages. Most of them we shall sufficiently see in the Council 
itself. 2 But there are two whose eminence so far transcends 
the limits of that particular event, and the understanding of 
whose characters is so necessary for the understanding of 
the whole event, as to demand a special notice. It will be 
worth while to have known something of the Council, if only 
it enables us to take a nearer view of two men so extra- 
ordinary as Constantine 3 and Athanasius. 4 



1 Lectures III. and V. 

2 Lecture III. 



3 Lecture VI. 
* Lecture VII. 



lect. in. THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA. 



77 



+ 

LECTURE III. 

THE MEETING OF THE COUNCIL. 

In the close of the month of May, 1853, it was my good 
fortune to be descending, in the moonlight of an early 
morning, from the high wooded steeps of one of the moun- 
tain ranges of Bithynia. As the dawn rose, and as we 
approached the foot of these hills, through the thick mists 
which lay over the plain, there gradually broke upon our 
view the two features which mark the city of Nicsea. 

Beneath us lay the long inland lake — the Ascanian Lake 
— which, communicating at its western extremity by a 
small inlet with the Sea of Marmora, fills up almost 

The present . . A 

appearance the whole valley ; — itself a characteristic of the 
conformation of this part of Asia Minor. Such 
another is the Lake of Apollonius, seen from the summit 
of the Mysian Olympus. Such another is the smaller lake 
seen in traversing the plain on the way from Broussa. 

At the head of the lake appeared the oblong space 
enclosed by the ancient walls, of which the rectangular form 
indicates with unmistakable precision the original founders 
of the city. It was the outline given to all the Oriental 
towns built by the successors of Alexander and their imitators. 
Alexandria, Antioch, Damascus, Philadelphia, Sebaste, Pal- 
myra, were all constructed on the same model of a complete 
square, intersected by four straight streets adorned with a 
colonnade on each side. This we know to have been the 
appearance of Nicasa, 1 as founded by Lysimachus and rebuilt 

1 Strabo, xii. 565. 



78 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. lect. in. 



by Antigonus. And this is still the form of the present walls, 
which, although they enclose a larger space than the first 
Greek city, yet are evidently as early as the time of the 
Roman Empire ; little later, if at all, than the reign ,of 
Constantine. Within their circuit all is now a wilderness; 
over broken columns, and through tangled thickets, the 
traveller with difficulty makes his way to the wretched 
Turkish village of Is-nik (efe NiVatav), which occupies the 
centre of the vacant space. In the midst of this village, 
surrounded by a few ruined mosques on whose summits 
stand the never-failing storks of the deserted cities of the 
East, remains a solitary Christian church, dedicated to 1 the 
Repose of the Virgin.' Within the church is a rude picture 
commemorating the one event which, amidst all the vicis- 
situdes of Nicsea, has secured for it an immortal name. 

To delineate this event, to transport ourselves back into 
the same season of the year, — the chestnut woods then as 
now green with the first burst of summer, the same sloping 
hills, the same tranquil lake, the same snow-capped Olympus 
from far brooding over the whole scene, but, in every other 
respect, how entirely different ! — will be my object in this 
Lecture. 

The meeting of a General Council is, as I have elsewhere 
said, in ecclesiastical history, what a pitched battle is in 
military history, and similar questions naturally rise in 
speaking of each. 

I. The first question is, Why was it fought ? 
sionSf C the Two opposite forces concurred in bringing 
Council - about the Council of Nicsea. 

i. The first was the Arian controversy. To enter into 
the details of the contest would lead me too far away from 
The Arian tne SUD j ect > an ^ they have been told sufficiently in 
controversy, histories accessible to all. But three points must 
be briefly mentioned to mark its precise connection with the 
events of the time. 

First: It was distinguished from all modern controversies 



LECT. III. 



ITS OCCASION. 



79 



on like subjects by the extremely abstract region within which 
its abstract ^ was confined. The difficulties which gave rise 
dogmatism. j- 0 the heresy of Arius had but a slight resemblance 
to those which have given birth to the opinions which have 
borne his name in modern times. He was led to adopt his 
peculiar dogma from a fancied necessity arising out of the 
terms ' Father ' and ' Son ; ' — 1 begotten ' and ' unbegotten.' 
The controversy turned on the relations of the Divine 
Persons in the Trinity, not only before the Incarnation, 
before Creation, before Time, but before the first beginnings 
of Time. ' There was ' — the Arian doctrine did not venture 
to say 1 a time ' — but c there was when He was not.' It was 
the excess of dogmatism founded upon the most abstract 
words in the most abstract region of human thought. 

Secondly: A serious cause of the apprehension which the 
Arian doctrine excited, when the Orthodox considered the 
its Poly- ultimate consequences to which it might lead 
theism. them, was not so much its denial or infringement 
of the Divinity of Christ (although the controversy naturally 
opened into this further question) as its making two gods 1 
instead of one, and thus relapsing into Polytheism. Poly- 
theism, Paganism, Hellenism, was the enemy from which the 
Church had just been delivered by Constantine ; and this 
was the enemy under whose dominion it was feared that the 
dividing, dogmatising spirit of Arius might bring them back. 
Greece and the East, far more than Italy and the West, 
were the true native seats of the old Pagan idolatries, and 
therefore the Eastern, far more than the Western, Church 
was sensitive on the subject of anything that tended, even 
remotely, to revive the multiplication of deities. ' I believe 
in God,' was the usual formula of the Western creeds. But, 
irrespectively of the Council of Nicaea, the formula of the 
Eastern creeds was ' I believe in one 2 God.' Whether or 



1 For this ' polytheism ' of the Arians, 
See Dr. Newman's note on Athanasius's 
Treatises, i. p. 221, and Dr. Pusey's note 
on Joel iii. 9, p. 137. 



2 See Rufinus in Symb. § 4, and the 
note in Professor Heurtley's Harmonia 
Symbolica, p. 127. The same feeling 
appears in the earnestness of the East- 



So 



THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. lect. hi. 



not the Polytheistic conclusion was fairly to be deduced from 
the Arian doctrine, it is certain that this was the inference 
which the Orthodox party feared, and to this fear peculiar 
significance was given by the time and place in which the 
Arian doctrine first arose. 

Thirdly (which is the most important point in reference 
to the actual convention of the council), was the intense 
vehemence with which the controversy was car- 

Vehemence . , _ TT1 . , , 

of the con- ried on. When we perceive the abstract ques- 
tions on which it turned, when we reflect that 
they related not to any dealings of the Deity with man, not 
even, properly speaking, to the Divinity or the Humanity 
of Christ, nor to the doctrine of the Trinity (for all these 
points were acknowledged by both parties), but to the 
ineffable relations of the Godhead before the remotest 
beginning of time, it is difficult to conceive that by inquiries 
such as these the passions of mankind should be roused to 
fury. Yet so it was — at least in Egypt, where it first began. 
All classes took part in it, and almost all took part with 
equal energy. ' Bishop rose against bishop,' says Eusebius, 
' district against district, only to be compared to the Symple- 
gades dashed against each other on a stormy day.' 1 So 
violent were the discussions that they were parodied in the 
Pagan theatres, and the Emperor's statues were broken in 
the public squares in the conflicts which took place. The 
common name by which the Arians and their system were 
designated (and we may conclude that they were not 
wanting in retorts) was the maniacs — the Ariomaniacs, the 
Ariomania ; 2 and their frantic conduct on public occasions 
afterwards goes far to justify the appellation. Sailors, 
millers, and travellers sang the disputed doctrines at their 
occupations or on their journeys: 3 4 every corner, every 
alley of the city ' (this is said afterwards of Constantinople, 



em Church in behalf of the Single Pro- 1 See Newman's note on Athanasius's 

cession. See Lecture I. p. 50. Treatises, i. 91. 

1 Eus. V. C. iii. 4. 3 See Lecture IV. 



LECT. III. 



ITS OCCASION. 



81 



but must have been still more true of Alexandria) * was full 
of these discussions — the streets, the market-places, the 
drapers, the money-changers, the victuallers. Ask a man 
" How many oboli ? " he answers by dogmatising on generated 
and ungenerated being. Inquire the price of bread, and 
you are told, " The Son is subordinate to the Father." Ask 
if the bath is ready, and you are told " The Son arose out 
of nothing." ' 1 

2. This was one side of the scene. On the other side 
arose a power and a character hitherto unknown in the 
Christian Church. The Emperor of the world now 
tion of the for the first time appeared in the arena of theo- 
Emperor. i 0 gi ca i controversy. He entered upon his relations 
to the Church as a traveller enters a new country — with 
high expectations, with hasty conclusions, with bitter dis- 
appointments. Of all these disappointments none was 
so severe as that which he felt when first he became 
acquainted with the fact that the Christian as well as the 
heathen commonwealth was torn by factions. It had broken 
upon him gradually — first at Aries, then at Rome, when 
the African controversy of the Donatists was brought be- 
fore him. But the culminating point was their wild out- 
break, as it must have seemed to him, in the important 
province of Egypt. We know his feelings from him- 
self. In the celebrated letter which he addressed to the 
Alexandrian Church — however much it may have been 
suggested or modified by one or other of his episcopal 
advisers — the sentiments are so like what he expressed on 
other occasions, that we may fairly adopt them as his own 
He describes (as usual, with the attestation of an oath 2 ) 
his mission of uniting the world under one head. He 
expresses^the hope with which he turned from the distracted 
West to the Eastern regions of his empire, as those from 
which divine light had first sprung. 4 But, oh ! divine and 

1 Greg. Nyss. de Deitate Fil. iii. 466. (Neander, iv. 61.) 
s See Lecture VI. 

G 



82 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. lect. Ill, 



glorious Providence, what wound has fallen on my ears — 
nay, rather on my heart ! ' And then, with an earnestness 
which it is difficult not to believe sincere, and with argu- 
ments which modern theologians have visited with the 
severest condemnation, but which the ancient and Orthodox 
historian, Socrates, has not hesitated to call 'wonderful 
and full of wisdom,' 1 he entreats the combatants ' to 
abandon these futile and interminable disputes, and to 
return to the harmony which became their common faith.' 
1 Give me back my calm days, and my quiet nights ; light 
and cheerfulness instead of tears and groans.' He had 
come as far as Nicomedia, the capital of the East ; he 
entreats them to open for him the way to the East, and to 
enable him to see them and all rejoicing in restored 
freedom and unity. 2 His letter was in vain. The con- 
troversy had gone too far. The wound could be healed 
only by an extraordinary remedy. That remedy the Em- 
peror was determined to provide. With the ardent desire 
for enforcing unanimity on those whom he was now called 
to govern, he combined a vague but profound reverence 
for the character and powers of the heads of the Christian 
community. From the union of these two feelings sprang 
(as he himself tells us, ' by a divine inspiration ') the first 
His idea of idea of convening a council of the representatives 
the Council. of the w h 0 i e church. He may have been advised 
by the clergy 3 who were about him ; but he declares, and 
his declaration is confirmed by history, that the main con- 
ception, under God, was due to himself only. And if the 
idea was his, still more exclusively so was its execution. 
Not till many years afterwards was the claim put forward, 
that Sylvester, Bishop of Rome, had combined with him 
in convening the assembly. 4 The little gatherings in each 
diocese, often hardly more in numbers than the meeting of 



1 i. 8 : Qavis.rj.a-T a koX ero^ti? y.emd' * Eus. V. C. ii. 68-73. 

None of the ancient historians condemn 3 Ruf. i. 1. 

the letter. * Mansi (Cone i 6 



LECT. III. 



ITS LOCALITY. 



83 



the vestry of a large parish, had been called together in 
former times by the Bishops of the respective dioceses. 
But the gathering of the Bishops themselves, from all parts 
of the Empire, could be effected only by a central authority 
which they all alike acknowledged ; and in the beginning 
of the fourth century that authority could be found nowhere 
but in the Emperor. Complimentary letters, accordingly, 
were addressed by him to all the Bishops. One of these 
has been preserved. It alludes to some similar intention 
(of which no other record exists) on the part of a small 
assembly of eighteen Bishops, which had met at Ancyra, in 
Galatia, nine years before, and then proceeds at once to 
name the place where the Council should meet. 1 

II. This leads us to ask what caused the selection of 
the locality. In General Councils, as in battles, this has 
always been a very important question. Look at 
tion of the Trent. Its situation immediately under the 
place. Alps, yet on the Italian side, exactly expresses the 
peculiarity of the assembly convened there. It was to be 
as near the dominions of the Emperor as was possible, 
without being altogether out of reach of the dominions 
of the Pope. It was to come as close to the confines of 
Protestantism as it could without crossing the barriers 
which parted it from them. Look at Pisa. It seems, so 
say those concerned in the event, 2 £ as if the place was 
made for a council ; ' a fertile plain abounding in gardens 
and vineyards for provisions and wine ; a river communi- 
cating with the sea, accessible to French, Italians, and 
Germans. Look at Constance. Here, again, was a frontier 
situation — a free city, therefore, to a certain extent, neutral 
between the contending parties — on the banks of a large 
lake, which would both furnish easy mode of access, and 
also assist in furnishing provisions for so great an assem- 
blage, especially fish in time of Lent A name, too, of 

1 Anal. Nic. 21, or ' Syriac Miscellanies,' p. 1. 

2 L'Enfant, Concile de Pise, ii. 26. 

G 2 



8 4 



THE COUNCIL OF NICSEA. lect. hi. 



happy omen — 1 Constantia,' which alone is said to have 
induced the Pope to consent to the locality. 

Not unlike to the motives which determined these sites 
of the great Western Councils, were those, as far as we can 
see, which determined the site of the chief Council of the 
East. One reason is expressly alleged by the Emperor 
himself —its healthy situation. 1 The mortality which took 
place amongst the Bishops at Ephesus, the violent disputes 
which raged amongst the medical authorities at Trent, as 
to the salubrity of the place, show the importance attached 
to this ground of selection. It is not, however, the reason 
which might have been expected in the case of Nicsea. 
The rich alluvial plain had a character for insalubrity, 
especially in summer, 2 the very season when the Council 
was assembled ; and, according to tradition, as we shall 
see, two Bishops died during the session. But there were 
also political and religious reasons. Constantinople was 
not yet founded ; by the time of the second Council, this, 
the capital of the Eastern Empire, was at once chosen for 
the gathering of the Eastern Church. But, although the 
precise locality of the capital was not yet fixed, yet its 
general atmosphere, so to speak, hung already over the 
shores of the Propontis. Already this was the resort of 
the Eastern Caesars ; and Nicomedia, the ancient capital 
of Bithynia, only twenty miles from Nicsea, had, since the 
time of Diocletian, been chosen as the capital of the East. 
Nicomedia was probably rejected for two reasons. As in 
the case of Constance and Trent, a city not actually the 
seat of government would be more appropriate for the 
purpose of a sacred assembly. And again, considering the 
controversy at stake, it would hardly have been fitting to 
have held the meeting in Nicomedia, where the Bishop, 
Eusebius, had taken so active a part in defence of one of 
the combatants, and had already convoked a synod of 
Arian Bishops 3 in the neighbourhood. The second capital 

1 Syiiac Misc. p. i. 2 Strabo, xii. p. 565. 3 Soz. i. 15. 



LECT. III. 



ITS TIME. 



85 



of Bithynia, therefore, Nicaea, naturally presented itself ; its 
lake furnished means of access from the Propontis, and it 
was sufficiently near the imperial residence. ' The Bishops 
of Italy, and from the rest of the countries of Europe, 
are coming* — these are the Emperor's own words — 'and 
I shall be at hand as a spectator and participator in what 
is done.' 1 Finally, the name, as afterwards in the case 
of Constance, was highly important. It was ' Nicaea,' the 
city of 'victory,' or 'conquest.' Its coins bore a figure 
of Victory. This fell in with Constantine's favourite title 
and watchword. 2 He was just fresh from the victory 
over his second rival, which caused him to assume 
the surname of Nicetes— the Victor, or the Conqueror. 
The motto, seen or alleged to be seen, in the apparition of 
the cross before his earlier victory, was the same word, iv 
tovtu) viKa — ' By this conquer ; ' and Eusebius specially 
dwells on the strains of conquest 3 and victory, which har- 
monised with the name of the place, and regards the 
Council itself as a thank-offering for the victory just gained 
by the Emperor over all his enemies. 4 ' It was a city,' he 
says, ' fitting for the synod — called after Victory, " the city 
of Victory," or " Nicaea." ' 5 

III. We are thus brought to the next point in connection 
with the convention of the Council, its date. The year of 
Time of the Christ 325 was the twentieth year of the reign of 
Council. Constantine, reckoning from the 25th of July 306, 
when he had been proclaimed at York. Every tenth year 
of an Imperial reign was celebrated with solemn games and 
festivities, in recollection of the original conditions under 
which Augustus accepted the Imperial power, namely, that 
it should be renewed at the end of every ten years. 6 ' The 



1 Analecta Nic. 21. 
* See Lecture VI. 

3 V. C. iv. 47 : r) trvvoSos imvtietos 
. . . €7r't ri)V nar' exfpwi' Kal rroAe- 
fxiW vuct)V iirl rijs Niicata? aurTjs em- 
TeAoCera. Compare Eus. Laud. Const. 
V. 18. 



* V. C. iii. 7 : tw avrov <rwn)pi ttjs 
kolt* e\0ptoi> Kal JToAe/xiW h'ktjs 6eo~ 
npeirel<; iv€Ti9ei \api(TT^piou. 

6 V. C. iii. 6 : vUrjt enwv/xo?, ij 

8 Dio. Cass. iii. 16. 



86 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. lect. hi. 



memory of this comedy,' says Gibbon, 'was preserved to 
the latest ages of the Empire ; ' and, in the case of Con- 
stantine, it was characteristically blended with the events 
following his conversion. Of the Decennalia, or celebration 
of his tenth year, we have no account. But the Tricennalia, 
or thirtieth year, was marked by the dedication of the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem : 1 and the 
Vicennalia, or twentieth year, was expressly chosen as the 
time in which the solemnities of the first (Ecumenical 
Council might act the part usually played by mere pomp 
and festivity. 2 And if under any circumstances this would 
have been appropriate, much more so was it in the peculiar 
conjuncture of this anniversary. It was little more than a 
year since Constantine, by the victory over Licinius to which 
I have just referred, became Emperor of the East as well 
as of the West An Eastern Council would, in fact, have 
been almost impossible before this time, and accordingly 
the Arian controversy was of necessity allowed to roll on, 
unchecked, for five years, till the restoration of peace and 
the close of the civil war enabled the Emperor to turn his 
attention to the subject, and to make his last attempt to 
heal it. The year of the meeting of the Council, therefore, 
of itself, indicates the state of the world at large. In place 
and time alike, it marks the final victory of Constantine over 
his enemies, the settlement of the Eastern Empire, and the 
connection of that Empire with the fortunes of the Eastern 
Church. 

The actual month and day of the meeting are more 
difficult to ascertain. The date of the opening varies from 
May 20 to May 29, June 14 and June 19. It is enough for 
our purpose to know that it took place somewhere near 
Whitsuntide, at the beginning of the summer. This was 
the usual time of the gathering of the Eastern Councils, 3 



1 Eus. V. C. iv. 47. 

2 Eus. V. C. iv. 47 ; Soz. H. E. i. 25. 

3 The Greeks call the Sunday after 
Ascension Day 'The Sunday of the 



Holy Fathers,' or of the '318 Theophori 
at Nicaea.' Heinichen on Eus. V. C. 
iii. 15. Smith, De Ecclesiae Grsecae 
hodierno Statu, p. 76. The Syrians 



LECT. III. 



ITS GATHERING. 



87 



and was probably fixed with a view to the reopening of the 
navigation of the Mediterranean, when the winter storms 
were over and the warm weather rendered travelling easy. 
In this instance the time would be further narrowed by the 
desire of the Emperor to combine it with the 25th of July, 
the anniversary of his accession, with which, as we shall see, 
the formal proceedings of the Council were closed, though 
the members appear not to have dispersed till the 25th of 
August. 1 

IV. It was, then, at such a time and to such a place, 
with the feelings inspired by such a conjuncture as I have 
Arrival of described, that, in the close of May or beginning 
the Bishops. 0 f June, Nicsea was approached by the representa- 
tives of the Christian Church from every part of the Eastern 
Empire, and from a few spots of the Western also. The 
mode of their travelling must be observed, not only as cha- 
racteristic of the manners of the time, but as decisive of the 
authority by which they were summoned. 

Letters were addressed, doubtless, on this as on a previous 
lesser occasion in the West, to the civil authorities, enjoining 
the supplies necessary for the journey. The posting arrange- 
ments of the Empire made such a convention far more easy 
than would have been the case at any period in the middle 
ages. The great lines of communication were like railroads, 
straight as arrows, from one extremity of the Empire to the 
other. From Bordeaux to Constantinople, a few years later, 
we have the record of two hundred post stations (/Aorat) and 
ninety-one inns ; an inn at the interval of every half-day's 
journey. 2 Each Bishop was to have two presbyters and 
three slaves 3 as his retinue. They travelled partly in public 
carriages, 4 partly on horses, asses, and mules, provided for 



celebrate it on July i ; the Armenians on 
Sept. 7 ; the Egyptians on Nov. 5. See 
Lecture V. 

1 Alexander (of Byzantium?) de- 
scribes it as ending in September (Pho- 
tius, Bib. 473) ; according to the later 
Greek traditions it lasted three (Phot. 



Bib. 473) or six years (ib. 66). See 
Beveridge's Synodicon, ii. 42. 

2 Itin. Burd. p. 548. See Dr. New- 
man's notes on Ath. Hist. Tracts, ii. 50. 

3 Eus. H. E. x. 8. 

* Eus. H. E. x. 5 : 5177700-101' ox^fia. 
V. C. iii. 6 : Srj^do-ios Spd/uos. 



88 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. 



LECT. III. 



the purpose, both for riding and carrying baggage. 1 The 
precedent thus established was never dropped, and the 
summoning of a Council was always known throughout the 
Empire by the stir along the roads in every direction. At 
later Councils we hear of the indecent haste with which 
Bishops might be seen 2 galloping at full speed to reach the 
appointed place in time, — the horses knocked up by their 
impatience, — or at times detained, as would not unfrequently 
happen at the end of an Eastern spring, by the flooding of 
rivers. 3 

This (varied no doubt by the arrival in vessels across the 
Ascanian Lake) must have been the general aspect of the 
Their num- gathering of the Council of Nicsea. They came, 
ber - says Eusebius, as fast as they could run, in almost 

a frenzy of excitement and enthusiasm. 4 The actual crowd 
must have been enough to have metamorphosed the place. 
It was indeed a number far below the enormous crowds 
which beset the later Councils. At Nicsea the highest cal- 
culation, in the distorted accounts of later times, fixes the 
number at more than 2,000. 5 This, if we include all the 
presbyters and attendants, is probably correct. The actual 
number of Bishops, variously stated in the earlier authorities 
as 218, 6 250, 7 270, 8 or 300, 9 was finally believed to have 
been 320 or 3 18, 10 and this in the Eastern Church has so 
completely been identified with the event that the Council 
is often known as that of 'the 318.' It is a proof of the 
importance of the event, that even so trivial a circumstance 
as the number should be made the groundwork of more 
than one mystical legend. In the Greek numerals it was 



1 Theod. H. E. i. 6 : optvai ko.1 ovois 
Ktu r\fx.i6voL<; koX 'introis. 

2 Ammian. xxi. 16. 

3 As at the Council of Ephesus. 
(Robertson, i. 445.) 

4 V. C. iii. 6 : ota tivos otto iwcnjs 
SOeov oi naures ev Trpoflujuu'o naarj. 

8 2340 (Macrizi, 31) ; 2848 (Mansi, ii. 
p. 1073 ; Eutychius, Ann. i. 440). 



B Anal. Nic. 34. 

7 Eus. V. C. iii. 8. 

8 Eustathius (apud Theod. i. 8), who, 
however, adds that he had not examined 
the matter closely. 

9 Athan. Hist. Monach. c 66 ; Apol. 
c. Arian. c. 23, 25 : De Synod, c. 43. 

10 Athan. ad Afr. c. 2 ; Soc. i. 8 ; Soi. 
i. 17 : (32°/ Theod. i. 7. 



LECT. III. 



ITS GATHERING. 



8 9 



T I H : i.e. T for the cross, I H for the sacred name T^o-oG?. 1 
It was 2 also supposed that their number was prefigured in 
the 318 slaves of Abraham. It became the foundation of 
seeking mystical numbers for the later Councils. The 
greatest of all the Eastern Councils, in numbers and dignity, 
that of Chalcedon, prided itself on being just double that of 
Niaea, 636. The Council of Constantinople, which deposed 
Ignatius and exalted Photius in the ninth century, prided 
itself on being exactly the same number, 318. The Alex- 
andrians, after two Arabian historians, 3 giving the sum total 
of the Council as 2348, represent the rest as the grand 
gathering of all the heretics of the world, Sabellians, Mario- 
laters, Arians, — and that the 318 were the Orthodox and 
steadfast minority. Two still stranger stories in connection 
with the number will appear as we proceed. 4 

But it was the diversity of the persons, and the strongly 
marked characters dividing each from each, which, more 
Diversity of tnan an Y mere display of numbers, constituted their 
characters. p ecu ii a r interest. In the conventional pictures of 
the Council, such, for example, as that which still exists at 
Nicsea, the figures are almost indistinguishable from each 
other, with the exception of the small knot of Arians, who 
are represented as grouped together in the centre, bearing 
the marks of their discomfiture in their looks of extreme 
disgust, and the sign of their heresy in the coal-black colour 
of their complexions. But this was far from being the true 
aspect of the assembly as it was first seen, before the theo- 
logical differences had been fully developed, and whilst the 
natural differences were the most prominent. Eusebius, 
himself an eye-witness, as he enumerates the various cha- 
racters from various countries, of various age and position, 
thus collected, compares the scene either with the diverse 
nations 5 assembled at Pentecost, or with a garland of flowers 



1 Ambrose, De Fide, i. 18. 2 Ibid. i. i. 

• Macrizi, 31 ; Eutychius, Ann. i. 440. * Lecture V. 

t v r ::; _ 



90 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. lect. hi. 



gathered in season, of all manner of colours, woven together 
as a peace-offering after the tranquillisation of the Empire ; 1 
or with a mystic dance, in which every actor performs a part 
of his own, 2 to complete a sacred ceremony. There were 
present the learned and the illiterate, courtiers and peasants, 
old and young, aged Bishops on the verge of the grave, 
beardless deacons just entering on their orifice ; 3 and it was 
an assembly in which the difference between age and youth 
was of more than ordinary significance ; for it coincided 
with a marked transition in the history of the world. The 
new generation had been brought up in peace and quiet 
They could just remember the joy diffused through the 
Christian communities by the edict of toleration published 
in their boyhood ; but they had themselves suffered nothing. 
Not so the older, and by far the larger part of the assembly. 
They had lived through the last and worst of the persecutions, 
and they now came like a regiment out of some frightful 
siege or battle, decimated and mutilated by the tortures or 
the hardships they had undergone. There must have been 
some of the aged inhabitants of Nicsea who remembered 
the death 4 of the two martyrs, Tryphon and Respicius, who, 
in the reign of Decius, had been dragged through the streets 
of the city, bleeding from their wounds, in the depth of 
winter. There must be some who retained from their grand- 
fathers the recollection of that still earlier and more cele- 
brated persecution in Bithynia, recorded by Pliny in his 
letters to Trajan. Most of the older members must have 
lost a friend or a brother. Many still bore the marks of 
their sufferings. Some uncovered their sides and backs to 
show the wounds inflicted by the instruments of torture. 
On others were the traces of that peculiar cruelty which 
distinguished the last persecution, the loss of a right eye, or 
the searing of the sinews of the leg, 5 to prevent their escape 



1 V. C. iii. 7. 3 Ibid. iii. 8. 

3 Ibid. iii. 8, 9. * See Tillemont, ii. 33. 

8 Eus. H. E. viii. 12. 



LECT. III. 



ITS GATHERING. 



91 



from working in the mines. 1 Both at the time and after- 
wards, it was on their character as an army of confessors 
and martyrs, 2 quite as much as on their character as an 
CEcumenical Council, that their authority reposed. In this 
respect no other Council could approach them, and, in the 
whole proceedings of the assembly, the voice of an old con- 
fessor was received almost as an oracle. 

V. They assembled in the first instance in one of the 
chief buildings of Nicaea, apparently for the purpose of a 
First place thanksgiving and a religious reunion. Whether it 
of meeting. was an ac tual church may be questioned. Chris- 
tians, no doubt, there had been in Bithynia for some genera- 
tions. Already in the second century Pliny had found them 
in such numbers that the temples were deserted, and the 
sacrifices neglected. But it would seem that on this occasion 
a secular building was fitted up as a temporary house of 
prayer. At least the traditional account of the place where 
their concluding prayers were held exactly agrees with 
Strabo's account of the ancient gymnasium of Nicaea. It was 
a large building, shaped like a basilica, with an apse at one 
end, planted in the centre of the town, and thus command- 
ing down each of the four streets a view of the four gates, 
and therefore called ' Mesomphalos,' the i Navel ' of the city. 3 
Whether, however, this edifice actually was a church or not, 
its use as such on this occasion served as a precedent for 
most of the later Councils. From the time of the Council 
of Chalcedon, they have usually been held within the walls 
of churches. But for this, the first Council, the church, so 
far as it was a church, was only used at the beginning and 
the end. 

After these thanksgivings were over, the members of the 
assembly must have been collected according to the divisions 
which shall now be described. 



1 Chrysostom, i. 609. the Presbyter, De Patr. Nic. Cone, as 

3 Ibid. i. 609. quoted in Mansi, ii. 727. 

* See Strabo (xii. 565) ; and Gregory 



92 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. lect. hi. 



i. The group which, above the rest, attracts our atten- 
tion, is the deputation from the Church of Egypt. Shrill 
_ . „ above all other voices, vehement above all other 

Deputies of , . 

the Egyp- disputants, ' brandishing their arguments, as it was 
tian urc . ^ egcr • one w h Q k new them well, 1 ' like spears, 

against those who ' sate under the same roof, and ate off the 
same 'table as themselves,' were the combatants from Alex- 
andria, who had brought to its present pass the question which 
the Council was called to decide. Foremost in that 

Alexander, 

Bishop of group in dignity, though not in importance or in 
energy, was the aged Alexander, whose imprudent 
sermon had provoked the quarrel, and whose subsequent 
vacillation had encouraged it. He was the Bishop, not 
indeed of the first, but of the most learned, see of Christen- 
dom. He was known by a title which he alone officially bore 
in that assembly. He was 'the Pope/ 'The Pope of Rome' 
was a phrase which had not yet emerged in history. But 
' Pope of Alexandria ' was a well-known dignity. Papa, 
that strange and universal mixture of familiar endearment 
and of reverential awe, extended in a general sense to all 
Greek Presbyters and all Latin Bishops, was the special 
address which, long before the names of patriarch or of 
archbishop, was given to the head of the Alexandrian 
Church. 2 

In the Patriarchal Treasury at Moscow is a very ancient 
scarf, or ' omophorion,' said to have been given by the 
Bishop of Nicaea in the seventeenth century to the Czar 

1 Theod. i. 6. the name was first given to Cyril, as re- 

a This peculiar Alexandrian appli- presenting the Bishop of Rome in the 

cation of a name, in itself expressing Council of Ephesus (Suicer, in voce). 

simple affection, is thus explained : — The name was fixed to the Bishop ot 

Down to Heraclas (a. d. 23c), the Bishop Rome in the 7th century. It has been 

of Alexandria, being the sole Egyptian fantastically explained as :— 1. Poppcea, 

bishop, was called ' Abba ' (father), and from the short life of each pope. 2. Pa, 

his clergy ' Elders.' From his time for Pater. 3. Pap, suck. 4. Pap, 

more bishops were created, who then re- breast. 5. Pa (Paul) Pe (Peter). 6. 

ceived the name of 'abba,' and conse- iranal ! (admiration). 7. Papos, ' keeper 

quently the name of ' Papa ' (ab-aba, (Oscan). 8. Pappas, chief slave. 9. 

pater patrum= grandfather) was appro- Pa(tzr) /'a(trise). 10. Pa, sound of a 

priated to the Primate. The Roman father's kiss. See Abraham Echellensis, 

account (inconsistent with facts) is that De Origine Nom. Papas, 60. 



lect. in. THE EGYPTIAN DEPUTIES. 



93 



Alexis, and to have been left to the Church of Nicaea by 
Alexander of Alexandria. It is white, and is rudely worked 
with a representation of the Ascension ; possibly in allusion 
to the first Sunday of their meeting. This relic, true or 
false, is the nearest approach we can now make to the bodily 
presence of the old theologian. The shadow of death is 
already upon him ; in a few months he will be beyond the 
reach of controversy. 

But close 1 beside the Pope Alexander is a small insig- 
nificant 2 young man, of hardly twenty-five years of age, of 
Athanasius ave ty mann ers 3 and speech, and of bright serene 
countenance. Though he is but the Deacon, the 
chief Deacon, 4 or Archdeacon, of Alexander, he has closely 
riveted the attention of the assembly by the vehemence of 
his arguments. He is already taking the words out of the 
Bishop's mouth, and briefly acting in reality the part he had 
before, as a child, 5 acted in name, and that, in a few months, 
he will be called to act both in name and in reality. In 
some of the conventional pictures of the Council his humble 
rank as a Deacon does not allow of his appearance. But 
his activity and prominence 6 behind the scenes made enemies 
for him there, who will never leave him through life. Any 
one who has read his passionate invectives afterwards may 
form some notion of what he was when in the thick of his 
youthful battles. That small insignificant Deacon is the 
great Athanasius. 

Next after the Pope and Deacon of Alexandria we must 
turn to one of its most important Presbyters — the parish 
priest of its principal church, which bore the name of 
Baucalis, and marked the first beginnings of what we should 
call a parochial system. 7 In appearance he is the very 



1 Gelas. ii. 7 ; Theod. i. 26 ; Soc. i. 8. 

2 Julian, Ep. 51. 

s Greg. Naz. Or. 219. 

* See Lecture VII. 

B See Lecture VI. 

e Ath. Apol. c. Ar. 6 ; So?., i. 17. 

' It was the earliest church in Alex- 



andria. It contained the tomb of S. 
Mark, and in it took place the election 
of the patriarch. It stood near the sea- 
shore, on a spot which derived its name 
(Boucalia) from the pasturage of cattle. 
(Neale's Hist of the Alex. Church, i. 7, 
9.) It stood on the shores of the pre- 



94 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. lect. lit 



opposite of Athanasius. He is sixty years of age, very tall 
and thin, and apparently unable to support his stature ; he 
has an odd way of contorting and twisting himself, which his 
enemies compare to the wrigglings of a snake. 1 He would 
be handsome but for the emaciation and deadly pallor of 
his face, and a downcast look, imparted by a weakness of 
eyesight. At times his veins throb and swell, and his limbs 
tremble, as if suffering from some violent internal com- 
plaint, — the same, perhaps, that will terminate one day in 
his sudden and dreadful death. There is a wild look about 
him, which at first sight is startling. His dress and demea- 
Arius nour are those of a rigid ascetic. He wears a long 
coat with short sleeves, 2 and a scarf of only half size, 
such as was the mark of an austere life ; and his hair hangs 
in a tangled mass over his head. He is usually silent, but 
at times breaks out into fierce excitement, such as will give 
the impression of madness. Yet, with all this, there is a 
sweetness in his voice, and a winning, earnest manner, which 
fascinate those who come across him. Amongst the reli- 
gious ladies of Alexandria he is said to have had from the 
first a following of not less than seven hundred. This 
strange, captivating, moon-struck giant is the heretic Arius, 
or, as his adversaries called him, the madman of Ares, or 
Mars. 3 Close beside him was a group of his countrymen, 
of whom we know little, except their fidelity to him, through 
good report and evil : Saras, like himself a presbyter, from 
the Libyan province ; Euzoius, a deacon of Egypt ; Achillas, 
a reader f Theonas, Bishop of Marmarica in the Cyrenaica ; 
and Secundus, Bishop of Ptolemais, in the Delta. 5 



sent harbour. The mosque which was 
built from its remains, and which bore 
the name of ' the Thousand Pillars,' was 
pulled down by the late Viceroy of 
Egypt. I saw the last traces of it in 
1862. 

1 This description is put together 
from the two different, but not irrecon- 
cilable, accounts given in Epiphanius 
(Ixix. 3), and in the letter ascribed to 



Constantine in Gelasius, iii. 1. (Mansi, 
ii. 93o-) 

2 The monks wore no sleeves, to in- 
dicate that their hands were not to be 
employed in injury. Soz. H. E. iii. 14. 

3 'AoeijaavTj?, in later Greek, was a 
phrase for ivar frenzy. 

* For these three names see Jerome 
Adv. Lucif. ii. 192. 
5 Theod. i. 7. 



lect. in. THE SYRIAN DEPUTIES. 



95 



These were the most remarkable deputies from the Church 
of Alexandria. But from the interior of Egypt came cha- 
Coptic her- racters of quite another stamp ; not Greeks, nor 
mits - Grecised Egyptians, but genuine Copts, 1 speaking 
the Greek language not at all, or with great difficulty ; living 
half or the whole of their lives in the desert; their very 
names taken from the heathen gods of the times of the 
ancient Pharaohs. One was Potammon, Bishop of 
o ammon. jj erac i e0 p 0 ii Sj f ar U p t h e ]sj^ e . ^ e other, Paph- 

nutius, Bishop of the Upper Thebaid. Both are famous for 
the austerity of their lives. Potammon 2 (that is * dedicated 
to Ammon ') had himself visited the hermit Antony ; Paph- 
_ . . nutius (that is, ■ dedicated to his God ') had been 

Paphnutius. v . ' ' 

brought up in a hermitage. 3 Both, too, had suffered 
in the persecutions. Each presented the frightful spectacle 
of the right eye dug out with the sword, and the empty 
socket seared with a red-hot iron. Paphnutius, besides, 
came limping on one leg, his left having been hamstrung. 4 

2. Next in importance must be reckoned the Bishops of 
Syria and of the interior of Asia ; or, as they are sometimes 
Deputies called in the later Councils, the Eastern Bishops 
Churchof as distinguished from the Church of Egypt. Then, 
Syna. as afterwards, there was rivalry between those 
branches of Oriental Christendom ; each, from long neigh- 
bourhood, knowing each, yet each tending in an opposite 
direction, till, after the Council of Chalcedon, a community 
of heresy drew them together again. Here, as in Egypt, we 
find two classes of representatives — scholars from the more 
civilised cities of Syria ; wild ascetics from the remoter East. 
Eustathius The first in dignity was the orthodox Eustathius, 
of Antioch. w h Q either was, or was on the point of being made, 5 



1 Antony could not speak Greek. 
Soz. i. 13. 

2 Three of that name were at Sar- 
dica. (Ath. Apol. c. Ar. 50.) 

3 iv a<TK7)T-qpC<p. The same word that 
in the Russian Chu-ch is abridged into 
skeet. See Lecture XI. 



4 Rufin. i. 4 : ' Sinistro poplite suc- 
ciso.' See also Soc. i. 11. 

5 The very intricate question of the 
date of Eustathius's appointment to 
Antioch is well discussed in Tillemont 
vii. 646. It seems most probable that 
he was appointed just at this crisis. 



96 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. lect. in. 



Bishop of the capital of Syria, the metropolis of the Eastern 
Church, Antioch, then called 'the city of God.' He had 
suffered in heathen persecutions, and was destined to suffer 
in Christian persecutions also. 1 But he was chiefly known 
for his learning and eloquence, which was distinguished by 
an antique simplicity of style. One work alone has come 
down to us, on the 'Witch of Endor.' 

Next in rank, and far more illustrious, was his chief suf- 
fragan, the metropolitan of Palestine, the Bishop of Caesarea, 
Eusebius of Eusebius. W e honour him as the father of eccle- 
Cacsarea. siastical history — as the chief depositary of the 
traditions which connect the fourth with the first century. 
But in the Bishops at Nicaea his presence awakened feelings 
of a very different kind. He alone of the Eastern Prelates 
could tell what was in the mind of the Emperor ; he was the 
clerk of the Imperial closet; he was the interpreter, the 
chaplain, the confessor of Constantine. And yet he was 
on the wrong side. Two especially, we may be sure, of the 
Egyptian Church were on the watch for any slip that he 
might make. Athanasius (whatever may have been the 
opinions of later times respecting the doctrines of Eusebius) 
was convinced that he was at heart an Arian. 2 Potammon 
of the one eye had known him formerly in the days of 
persecution, and was ready with that most fatal taunt, which, 
on a later occasion, he threw out against him, that, whilst 
he had thus suffered for the cause of Christ, Eusebius 3 had 
escaped by sacrificing to an idol. 

If Eusebius was suspected of Arianism, he was supported 
by most of his suffragan bishops in Palestine, of whom Pau- 
linus of Tyre, 4 and Patrophilus of Bethshan (Scythopolis), 
Macarius of were tne most remarkable. One, however, a cham- 
jemsaiem. pi 0 n of Orthodoxy, was distinguished, not in him- 
self, but for the see which he occupied — once the highest in 
Christendom, in a few years about to claim something of its 

1 Soz. ii. 19. 3 Epiph. cxviii. 7 ; Ath. Apol. 8. 

1 De Syn. c. 17. * Theod. i. 4, 7. 



lect. in. THE MESOPOTAMIAN DEPUTIES. 



97 



former grandeur, but at the time of the Council known only 
as a second-rate Syro-Roman city — Macarius, Bishop of ^Elia 
Capitolina, that is, c Jerusalem.' 

From Neocaesarea, a border fortress on the Euphrates, 1 
came its confessor Bishop, Paul, who, like Paphnutius and 
Paul of Potammon, had suffered in the persecutions, but, 
Neocsesarea. more recently, under Licinius. His hands were 
paralysed by the scorching of the muscles of all the fingers 
with red-hot iron. Along with him were the Orthodox 
representatives of four famous Churches, who, according to 
James of tne Armenian tradition, travelled in company. 2 
Nisibis. Their leader was the marvel, * the Moses,' as he 
was termed of Mesopotamia, James, or Jacob, Bishop of 
Nisibis. 3 He had lived for years as a hermit on the moun- 
tains ; in the forests during the summer, in caverns during 
the winter : browsing on roots and leaves like a wild beast, 
and like a wild beast clothed in a rough goat-hair cloak. 
This dress and manner of life, even after he became bishop, he 
never laid aside; and the mysterious awe which his presence 
inspired was increased by the stories of miraculous power, 
which, we are told, he exercised in a manner as humane 
and playful as it was grotesque ; as when he turned the 
washerwoman's hair white, detected the impostor who pre- 
tended to be dead, and raised an army of gnats against 
the Persians. His fame as a theologian rests on disputed 
writings. 4 

The second was Ait-allaha (' the brought of God/ like 
the Greek ' Theophorus '), who had just occupied the see 
of Edessa, and finished the building of the cemetery of his 
cathedral. 5 

1 Theod. i. 6. * Theod. Philoth. iii. 1108--1116 ; 

2 Moses Choren. ii. 87. To these Bibl. Patr. v. iii.— clii. 

must be added Maruthas, Bishop of 5 Chronicon Edess. ap. Assemani 

Tagrit, namesake of the future historian Biblioth. Or. i. 394. His name is 
of the Council. (Assem. Bibl. Or. i. 195.) written Ettilaus, jJEtholaus, sEtolus t 
See p. 53. in the Nicene subscriptions, and 

3 Theod. Philoth. iii. 11 — 14 : ota tis Authalius in Moses Choren. ii. 87. 
ipi'cTTevc Kal irp6ju.axos a7ra(rrj; <f»a'Aayyos. Rabalas, Chronicle of Amrou, Asseman. 
See Biblioth. Patrum, v. p. clviii. iii. 588. 



9 8 



THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. lect. hi. 



The third was Aristaces, said to be the cousin of Jacob of 
Nisibis and son of Gregory the Illuminator, founder of the 
Armenian Church. 1 He represented both his father the 
Bishop, and Tiridates the King, of Armenia; the Bishop and 
King having received a special invitation from Constantine, 2 
and sent their written professions of faith by the hands of 
Aristaces. 

The fourth came from beyond the frontier, the sole re- 
presentative of the more distant East. 4 John the Persian,' 
who added to his name the more sounding title, — here ap- 
pearing for the first time, but revived in our own days as the 
designation of our own Bishops of Calcutta, — ' Metropolitan 
of India.' 3 

A curious tradition related that this band, including eleven 
other obscure names from the remote East, were the only 
members of the Nicene Council who had not sustained some 
bodily mutilation or injury. 4 

3. As this little band advanced westward, they encoun- 
tered a remarkable personage, who stands at the head of the 
Deputies next S rou P wnicft we m eet — the Prelates of Asia 
from the Minor and Greece. This was Leontius of Caesarea 
Asia Minor, in Cappadocia. From his hands, it was said, 
Leontius of Gregory of Armenia had received ordination, and 
aesarea. f rom hj s successors in the see of Csesarea had 
desired that every succeeding Bishop of Armenia should 
receive ordination likewise. 5 For this reason, it may be, 
Aristaces and his company sought him out. They found 
Leontius already on his journey, and they overtook him at a 
critical moment. 6 He was on the point of baptizing another 
Gregory, father of a much more celebrated Gregory, the 
future Bishop of Nazianzum. A light, it was believed, shone 



1 See Le Quien, Oriens Christ, ii. 
1251. Bibl. Patr, v. cliii 

2 Moses Choren. ii. 86. 

3 Eus. V. C. iii. 7 : tjStj Se /cat Hepcrr)<; 
eTriaxo7ros avvoSio naprjv. In Gelas. 
Cyz. called John. In the Coptic 
version (Spicil. Solesm. 533) he is made 



the Bishop of Persis, a city in Meso- 
potamia. Has his name, thus emphati- 
cally stated, any connection with Prester 
John? 

* Acta SS. Jan. 13, 781. 

s Moses Choren. ii. 87. 

6 Greg. Naz. Or. xviii. c 12, 13. 



lect. in. DEPUTIES OF ASIA MINOR AND GREECE. 99 



from the water, which was only discerned by the sacred 
travellers. 

Leontius was claimed by the Arians, but still more de- 
cidedly by the Orthodox. 1 Others, of the same side, are 
usually named as from the same region, amongst them 
Hypatius of Gangra, whose end we shall witness at the 
close of these events, and Hermogenes, the deacon, after- 
wards Bishop of Csesarea, who acted as secretary of the 
Council. 

Eusebius of Nicomedia, afterwards of Constantinople, 
Theognis of Nicsea, 2 Maris of Chalcedon, and Menophantus 
Eusebius of °f Ephesus, were amongst the most resolute de- 
Nicomedia. f en d ers 0 f Arius. It is curious to reflect that they 
represent the four sees of the four Orthodox Councils of 
the Church. The three last-named soon vanish away from 
history. But Eusebius of Nicomedia, friend, namesake, 
perhaps even brother of the Bishop of Caesarea, was a 
personage of high importance both then and afterwards. 
As Athanasius was called ' the great ' by the Orthodox, so 
was Eusebius by the Arians. 3 Even miracles were ascribed 
to him. 4 Originally Bishop of Beyruth (Berytus), he had 
been translated 5 to the see of Nicomedia, then the capital 
of the Eastern Empire. He had been a favourite of the 
Emperor's rival Licinius. 6 and had thus become intimate 
with Constantia, the Emperor's sister, the wife, now the 
widow, of Licinius. Through her and through his own 
distant relationship with the Imperial family, he kept a hold 
on the court which he never lost, even to the moment when 
he stood by the dying bed of the Emperor, years afterwards, 
and received him into the Church. We must not be too 
hard on the Christianity of Eusebius, if we wish to vindicate 
the baptism of Constantine. 7 

1 Ath. ad Episc. JEg. c. 8. Philo- * See Neale's Alexandrian Churchy 



storgius, i. 9. 

2 Theod. i. zx. He says : ©edyvios 
NiKata? avr-rjs kiri<TKono<;. 

3 Philostorg. Fragm. i. 9. 



i. 123. 5 Theod. i. 19. 

6 Athan. Apol. c. Arian. 6 ; Ammian. 
Marcell. xxii. 9, 4. 

7 See Lecture VI. 



i Lof C. 



H 2 



100 



THE COUNCIL OF NIGEA. 



LECT. III. 



Not far from the great prelate of the capital of the East, 
would be the representative of what was now a small Greek 

Alexander t0WI1 ' m nve vearS f rom tnat ^ me WOUld SUper- 

of Byzan- sede altogether the glories of Nicomedia. Metro- 
phanes, 1 Bishop of Byzantium, was detained by 
old age and sickness, but Alexander, his presbyter, himself 
seventy years of age, was there, with a little secretary of the 
name of Paul, not more than twelve years old, one of the 
readers and collectors of the Byzantine Church. 2 Alexander 
had already corresponded with his namesake of Alexandria 
on the Arian controversy, 3 and was apparently attached firmly 
to the Orthodox side. 

Besides their more regular champions, the Orthodox 
party of Greece and Asia Minor had a few very eccentric 
Acesius.the allies. One was Acesius, the Novatian, 'the 
Novatian. Puritan,' summoned by Constantine from Byzan- 
tium with Alexander, from the deep respect entertained by 
the Emperor for his ascetic character. He was attended 
by a boy, Auxanon, who lived to a great age afterwards as 
a presbyter in the same sect. 4 This child was then living 
with a hermit, Eutychianus, on the heights of the neighbour- 
ing mountain of the Bithynian Olympus, and he descended 
from these solitudes to attend upon Acesius. From him 
we have obtained some of the most curious details of the 
Council. 

Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, was, amongst the Bishops, 
the fiercest opponent of Arius, and when the active Deacon 
Marcellus of °f Alexandria was not present, seems to have 
Ancyra. borne the brunt of the arguments. 5 Yet, if we 
may judge from his subsequent history, Athanasius could 
never have been quite at ease in leaving the cause in his 
hands. He was one of those awkward theologians who 
never could attack Arianism without falling into Sabel- 



1 Photius, Biblioth. 471. 3 Neale, i. 130. 

9 Ibid. 4 Soc. i. 13. 

* Ath. Apol. c. At. §§ 23, 32. 



lect. in. THE DEPUTIES FROM GREECE. IOI 

lianism ; and in later life he was twice deposed from his see 
for heresy, once excommunicated by Athanasius himself, 
and in the present form of the Nicene Creed one clause (that 
which asserts that 'the kingdom of Christ shall have no 
end ') is said to have been expressly aimed at his exaggerated 
language. 1 

And now come two, who in the common pictures of the 
Council always appear together, of whom the one probably 
left the deepest impression on his contemporaries, and the 
other, if he were present at all, on the subsequent traditions 
Spyridion of °^ t ^ ie Council. From the island of Cyprus there 
Cyprus. arrived the simple shepherd Spyridion, a shep- 
herd both before and after his elevation to the episcopate. 
Strange stories were told by his fellow-islanders to the his- 
torian Socrates of the thieves who were miraculously caught 
in attempting to steal his sheep, and of Spyridion's 
good-humoured reply when he found them in the morning, 
and gave them a ram that they might not have sat up 
all night for nothing. Another tale, exactly similar to the 
fantastic Mussulman legends which hang about the sacred 
places of Jerusalem, told how he had gained an answer from 
his dead daughter Irene to tell where a certain deposit was 
hidden. 2 Two less marvellous but more instructive stories 
bring out the simplicity of his character. He rebuked a 
celebrated preacher at Cyprus for altering in a quotation 
from the Gospels the homely word for ' bed ' into ' couch.' — 
4 What! are you better than he who said "bed," 3 'that 
'you are ashamed to use his words?' On occasion of 
a wayworn traveller coming to him in Lent, finding no 
other food in the house, he presented him with salted pork; 
and when the stranger declined, saying that he could not as 
a Christian break his fast — ' So much the less reason,' he 
said, ' have you for scruple ; to the pure, all things are pure.' 4 



1 Ath. Apol. de Syn. §§ 24, 26. s KpdfiPaTov altered into o-/a)x7rou5. 

s Ruf. i. 5 ; compare 1 Sinai and Soz. i. n. 
Palestine,' p. 179. * See Tillemont, vi. 688 — 696. 



102 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. lect. hi. 



A characteristic legend attaches to the account of his 
journey to the Council. It was his usual practice to travel 
on foot. But on this occasion the length of the journey, 
as well as the dignity of his orifice, induced him to ride, 
in company with his deacon, on two mules, a white and 
a chestnut. One night, on his arrival at a caravanserai 
where a cavalcade of Orthodox bishops were already 
assembled, the mules were turned out to pasture, whilst he 
retired to his devotions. The bishops had conceived an 
alarm lest the cause of Orthodoxy should suffer in the 
Council by the ignorance or awkwardness of the Shepherd 
of Cyprus when opposed to the subtleties of the Alexandrian 
heretic. Accordingly, taking advantage of this encounter 
they determined to throw a decisive impediment in his way. 
They cut off the heads of his two mules, and then, as is the 
custom in Oriental travelling, started on their journey before 
sunrise. Spyridion also rose, but was met by his terrified 
deacon, announcing the unexpected disaster. On arriving 
at the spot, the saint bade the deacon attach the heads to the 
dead bodies. He did so, and, at a sign from the Bishop, the 
two mules with their restored heads shook themselves as if 
from a deep sleep, and started to their feet. Spyridion and 
the deacon mounted, and soon overtook the travellers. As 
the day broke, the prelates and the deacon were alike 
astonished at seeing that he, performing the annexation in 
the dark and in haste, had fixed the heads on the wrong 
shoulders ; so that the white mule had now a chestnut head, 
and the chestnut mule had the head of its white companion. 
Thus the miracle was doubly attested, the bishops doubly 
discomfited, and the simplicity of Spyridion doubly 
exemplified. 1 

Many more stories might be told of him, but (to use the 



1 Another version of this legend 
(which appeared in the ist edition of 
this work) ascribes the decapitation to 
the Arians. But the more usual version 
is that here given. I heard it both in 



Mount Athos and at Corfu, and it is 
told at length in an Italian MS. Life of 
S. Spyridion, communicated to me by 
the kindness of a friend in Corfu. 



lect. in. THE DEPUTIES FROM GREECE. 1 03 



words of an ancient writer who has related some of them) 
'from the claws you can make out the lion.' 1 Of all the 
Nicene fathers, it may yet be said that in a certain curious 
sense he is the only one who has survived the decay of 
time. After resting for many years in his native Cyprus, 
his body was transferred to Constantinople, where it re- 
mained till a short time before the fall of the Empire. It 
was thence conveyed to Corfu, where it 2 is still preserved. 
Hence, by a strange resuscitation of fame, he has become 
the patron saint, one might almost say the Divinity, of the 
Ionian Islands. Twice a year in solemn procession he is 
carried round the streets of Corfu. Hundreds of Corfiotes 
bear his name, now abridged into the familiar diminutive 
of 'Spiro.' The superstitious veneration entertained for 
the old saint is a constant source of quarrel between the 
English residents and the native Ionians. But the historian 
may be pardoned for gazing with a momentary interest on 
the dead hands, now black and withered, that subscribed 
the Creed of Nicasa. 

Still more famous (and still more apocryphal, at least in 
his attendance at Nicsea) is Nicolas, Bishop of Myra. Not 
Nicolas of mentioned by a single ancient historian, he yet 
Myra. figures in the traditional pictures of the Council, 
as the foremost figure of all. Type as he is of universal 
benevolence to sailors, to thieves, to the victims of thieves, 
to children, — known by his broad red face, and flowing 
white hair, —the traditions of the East always represent him 
as standing in the midst of the assembly, and suddenly 
roused by righteous indignation to assail the heretic Arius 
with a tremendous box on the ear. 3 

The western 4- One more group of deputies closes the 
Bishops. arrivals. The Nicene Council was, as I have 
often said, a Council of the Eastern Church • and Eastern 



1 Photius, Biblioth. 471. scendants of his sister. 

2 It was brought by the great family 3 See Tillemont, vi. 688. Comp. 
of the Bulgaris, who are said to be de- Lecture IV. 



io4 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. lect. hi. 



seemingly were at least 310 of the 318 Bishops. But the 
West was not entirely unrepresented. Nicasius from France, 
Marcus from Calabria, Capito from Sicily, Eustorgius from 
Milan (where a venerable church is still dedicated to his 
memory), Domnus of Stridon in Pannonia, were the less 
conspicuous deputies of the Western provinces. 

But there were five men whose presence must have 
been full of interest to their Eastern brethren. Correspond- 
Theophiius m § to J onn tne Persian from the extreme East, 
the Goth. was Theophilus the Goth from the extreme North. 
His light complexion doubtless made a marked contrast 
with the tawny hue and dark hair of almost all the rest. 
They rejoiced to think that they had a genuine Scythian 
amongst them. 1 From all future generations of his Teutonic 
countrymen he may claim attention, as the predecessor and 
teacher of Ulphilas, 2 the great missionary of the Gothic 
nation. 3 

Out of the province of Northern Africa, the earliest 
cradle of the Latin Church, came Csecilian, Bishop of 
Cabman of Carthage. A few years ago he had himself been 
Carthags. convened before the two Western Councils of the 
Lateran and of Aries, and had there been acquitted of the 
charges brought against him by the Donr.tists. 

If any of the distant Orientals had hoped to catch a 
sight of the Bishop of the 'Imperial City,' they were 
doomed to disappointment. Doubtless, had he been there, 
his position as prelate of the capital would have been, if 
not first, at least among the first. But Sylvester 4 was now 
victor and f ar advanced in years ; and in his place came the 
the Roman two presbyters, who, according to the arrangement 
presbyters. i a id down by the Emperor, would have accom- 
panied him had he been able to make the journey. In this 
simple deputation later writers have seen (and perhaps by a 
gradual process the connection might be traced) the first 

f Eus. V. C. Hi. 7. 2 Soc. ii. 41. 3 See Lecture IX. 

* Sozomen (i. 17), by mistake, says Julius. 



LECT. III. 



DEPUTIES FROM THE WEST. 



105 



germ of legati a latere. But it must have been a very far- 
seeing eye which in Victor and Vincentius, the two un- 
known elders, representing their sick old Bishop, could 
have detected the predecessors of Pandulf or of Wolsey. 
Hosius of With them, however, was a man who, though not 
Cordova. i on g forgotten, was then an object of deeper 
interest to Christendom than any Bishop of Rome could 
at that time have been. It was the world-renowned 
Spaniard, as he is called by Eusebius ; the magician from 
Spain, 1 as he is called by Zosimus ; Hosius, Bishop of 
Cordova. He was the representative of the westernmost 
of European Churches ; but, as Eusebius of Csesarea was 
the chief counsellor of the Emperor in the Greek Church, 
so was Hosius in the Latin Church, as we shall see here- 
after in the darkest and most mysterious crisis of Con- 
stantine's life. With some there present he was personally 
acquainted. The Alexandrian deputies had already seen 
him, when he had come to their city charged with the 
Emperor's pacificatory letter to Alexander and Arius. He 
and Eusebius must have been regarded as the most power- 
ful persons in the assembly. He had still thirty years of 
life to run, yet he was already venerable with years and 
sufferings and honours. He had been a confessor in the 
persecutions of Maximin ; he was received, Athanasius 
tells us, with profound reverence, as that ' Abrahamic old 
man, well called Hosius, 2 the " Holy ; " ' and probably no 
one then present would have thought of inquiring whether 
any portion of his authority was derived from the absent 
Bishop of Rome. This claim for him has been set up in 
later times ; and it is possible that, as he was certainly 
charged with the secrets of the Roman Emperor, so he 
may have been with those of the Roman Bishop. But 
such was not the impression produced on the contemporary 
witnesses of the scene ; his own high character, his intimacy 



See Lecture VI. 2 Apol. Ap. Ar. 44 ; De Fuga, 5 ; Ad Mon. 42—45. 



106 THE COUNCIL OF NIO£A. lect. hi. 

with Constantine, and his theological learning, were suffi- 
cient of themselves to have secured for him the position 
which he occupied there, as in all the other Councils of 
the age. 

VI. It was probably by degrees that these different 
arrivals took place, and the lapse of two or three weeks 
Preliminary must be supposed, for the preparatory arrange- 
discussions. me nts, before the Council was formally opened. 
This interval was occupied by eager discussions on the 
questions likely to be debated. The first assemblage had 
been, as we have seen, within the walls of a public build- 
ing. But the other preliminary meetings were held, as was 
natural, in the streets or colonnades in the open air. The 
novelty of the occasion had collected many strangers to 
the spot. Laymen, philosophers, heathen as well as 
Christian, might be seen joining in the arguments on either 
side, 1 orthodox as well as heretical. There were also dis- 
cussions amongst the Orthodox themselves as to the 
principle on which the debates should be conducted. The 
enumeration of the characters just given shows that there 
were two very different elements in the assembly, such 
indeed as will always constitute the main difficulty in 
making any general statements of theology which shall be 
satisfactory at once to the few and to the many. A large 
number, perhaps the majority, consisted of rough, simple, 
almost illiterate men, like Spyridion the shepherd, Potammon 
the hermit, Acesius the puritan, who held their faith 
earnestly and sincerely, but without much conscious know- 
ledge of the grounds on which they maintained it, incapable 
of arguing themselves, or of entering into the arguments of 
their opponents. These men, when suddenly brought into 
collision with the acutest and most learned disputants of 
the age, naturally took up the position that the safest course 

1 Soc. i. 8 : iKarepu> neoei <rv"7iyr>peiv all on the Arian side, as in later histo* 
irpoOvfiov^evoi. This disproves the re- rians and in the Athonian pictures, 
presentation that the philosophers were 



lect. in. PRELIMINARY DISCUSSIONS. 



107 



was to hold by what had been handed down, without any 
further inquiry or explanation. A story somewhat variously 
, told is related of an encounter of one of these 

The theolo- 
gians and simple characters with the more philosophical 

combatants, which, in whatever way it be taken, 

well illustrates the mixed character of the Council, and the 

choice of courses open before it. As Socrates describes 

the incident, the disputes were running so high, from the 

mere pleasure of argument, that there seemed likely to be 

no end to the controversy ; when suddenly a simple-minded 

layman, who by his sightless eye, or limping leg, bore 

witness of his zeal for the Christian faith, stepped amongst 

them, and abruptly said : ' Christ and the Apostles left us, 

* not a system of logic, nor a vain deceit, but a naked 

* truth, to be guarded by faith and good works.' ' There 

* has,' says Bishop Kaye 1 in recording the story, ' been 
4 hardly any age of the Church in which its members have 
' not required to be reminded of this lesson.' On the 
present occasion the bystanders, at least for the moment, 
were struck by its happy application ; the disputants, after 
hearing this plain word of truth, took their differences more 
good-humouredly, and the hubbub of controversy subsided. 

Another version of the same story, or another story of 
the same kind, with a somewhat different moral, is told by 
Thephiio R u fi nus an d Sozomen, 2 and amplified by later 
sopher and writers. The disputants, or rather disputant (for 

the peasant. . . , 1X . . 

one is specially selected), is now not a Christian 
theologian, but a heathen philosopher, to whom, in later 
writings, is given the suspicious name of Eulogius, 3 ' Fair- 
speech.' He was a perfect master of argument ; the 
moment that he seemed to be caught by any of his op- 
ponents, he slipped out of their hands like an eel or a 
snake. 4 His opponent is, in this story, not a layman, but 



1 1 Some Account of the Council of * Gelasius, iii. 13. 
Nicaea,' p. 39. * Ruf. i. 3 : ' Velut anguis lubricus.' 

* Ruf. i. 3 ; Soz. i. 18. 



108 THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. lect. hi. 

an aged bishop or priest (and here the later account 
identifies him with the shepherd Spyridion). Unable to 
bear any longer the taunts with which the philosopher 
assailed a group of Christians, amongst whom he was 
standing, he came forth to refute him. His uncouth 
appearance, rendered more hideous by the mutilations he 
had undergone in the persecutions, provoked a roar of 
laughter from his opponents, whilst his friends were not a 
little uneasy at seeing their cause entrusted to so unskilled a 
champion. But he felt himself strong in his own simplicity. 
' In the name of Jesus Christ,' he called out to his antago- 
nist, 'hear me, philosopher. There is one God, maker of 
4 heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible : 

* who made all things by the power of His Word, and by 

* the holiness of His Holy Spirit. This Word, by which 
' name we call the Son of God, took compassion on men for 
1 their wandering astray, and for their savage condition, and 
1 chose to be born of a woman, and to converse with men, 
' and to die for them, and He shall come again to judge 

* every one for the things done in life. These things we 
c believe without curious inquiry. Cease therefore the vain 

* labour of seeking proofs for or against what is established 

* by faith, and the manner in which these things may be or 
' may not be ; but, if thou believest, answer at once to me 
' as I put my questions to you.' 

The philosopher was struck dumb by this new mode of 
argument. He could only reply that he assented. ' Then,' 
answered the old man, 'if thou believest this, rise and 
'follow me to the Lord's house, 1 and receive the sign of 
4 this faith.' The philosopher turned round to his disciples, 
or to those who had been gathered round him by curiosity. 
' Hear,' he said, 1 my learned friends. So long as it was a 
' matter of words, I opposed words to words, and whatever 
' was spoken I overthrew by my skill in speaking ; but 

1 Ruf. i. 3 : 'Ad dominicum. ' This shows that they were outside the building: 
see p. 123. 



lect. in. PRELIMINARY DISCUSSIONS. 



IO9 



'when, in the place of words, power came out of the 
' speaker's lips, words could no longer resist power, man 
' could no longer resist. If any of you feel as I have felt, 
' let him believe in Christ, and let him follow this old man 
'in whom God has spoken.' Exaggerated or not, 1 this 
story is a proof of the magnetic power of earnestness and 
simplicity over argument and speculation. 

The tradition which identified the simple disputant with 
Spyridion grew in later times into the form which it bears in 
all the pictures of the Council, and which is commemorated 
in the services of the Greek Church. Aware of his inca- 
pacity of argument, he took a brick and said, 'You deny 
' that Three can be One. Look at this : it is one, and yet it 
'is composed of the three elements of fire, earth, and water.' 
As he spoke, the brick resolved itself into its component 
parts : the fire flew upward, the clay remained in Spyridion's 
hand, and the water fell to the ground. The philosopher, or 
(according to some accounts) Arius himself, was so con- 
founded, as to declare himself converted on the spot. 2 

These tales represent probably the feeling of a large 
portion of the Council — the sound, unprofessional, untheo- 

logical, lay element which was the source at once 
free discus- of their weakness and their strength. The historian 

Socrates is very anxious to prove that the assembly 
was not entirely composed of men of this kind, and he 
points triumphantly to the presence of such men as Eusebius 
of Caesarea. No proof was necessary. The subsequent 
history of the Council itself is a sufficient indication that, 
however small a minority might be the dialecticians and 
theologians, yet they constituted the life and movement of 



1 See a similar story of Alexander 
of Byzantium, who was present at the 
Council (Soz. i. 17), and of S. Francis 
Xavier (Grant's Bampton Lectures, 
p. 272). 

3 In the MS. Italian Life of S. 
Spyridion before quoted, the speech with 



the philosopher is lengthened into a his- 
tory of the Old and New Dispensations, 
and the miracle of the brick is reported 
as taking place afterwards with Arius. 
But in the pictures of the Council, in 
Mount Athos and at Nicaea, it is as I 
have represented. 



no 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. 



LECT. III. 



the whole. Socrates dwells with evident pleasure 1 on the 
circumstance that the ultimate decisions were only made 
after long inquiry, and that everything was stirred to the 
bottom. Gelasius, in the next century, so far from being 
satisfied with the summary treatment of the disputant by 
the old confessor, introduces a second philosopher, of the 
name of Phsedo, who has a pitched battle with five Bishops, 2 
Hosius included, whose arguments are drawn out at full 
length. This, though fabulous in its details, is doubtless 
true in its substance. The frenzy of argument was too 
vehement to be restrained. Heretics and Orthodox alike 
felt themselves compelled to advance. 

We may wish, with Bishop Jeremy Taylor and Bishop 
Kaye, that it had been otherwise. But there is a point of 
view from which we may fully sympathise with the course 
that was taken. All the elements which go to make up the 
interest of theology were involved : love of free inquiry, 
desire of precision in philosophical statements, research into 
Christian antiquity, comparison of the texts of Scripture 
one with another. Traditional and episcopal authority was 
regarded as insufficient for the establishment of the faith. 
The well-known clause of the Twenty-first Article does but 
express the principle of the Nicene fathers themselves : — 

* Things ordained by them as necessary for salvation have 

* neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared 
' that they are taken out of Holy Scripture.' The battle 
was fought and won by quotations, not from tradition, but 
from the Old and New Testament. The overruling sen- 
timent was, that even ancient opinions were not to be 
received without sifting and inquiry. 3 The chief combatant 
and champion of the faith was not the Bishop of Antioch 
or of Rome, nor the Pope of Alexandria, but the Deacon 
Athanasius. The eager discussions of Nicsea present the 
first grand precedent for the duty of private judgment, and 

1 i. 9 . 

3 Hosius, Leontius, Eusebius, Macarius, and Eupsychius (of Tyana). (Gelas, 
iii. 14-23.) 3 Soz. i. 17, 25. 



lect. in. PRELIMINARY DISCUSSIONS. 



Ill 



the free, unrestrained exercise of Biblical and historical 
criticism. 1 

And now, on the morrow of the discussion between the 
peasant and the theologians, 2 the day arrived when the 
Council was to begin its work in earnest — the day when 
they should at last see the great man at whose bidding 
they were met together, and to whose arrival many looked 
forward as the chief event of the assembly. 3 The Emperor 
was on his way to Nicaea, and would be there in a few hours 
to open the Council in person. 



1 It has been often maintained that 
the decisions of the Council were based 
on authority, not on argument. It is 
certain that some of the reasonings of 
Athanasius rest on the general reception 
of the Nicene doctrines, rather than on 
their intrinsic truth. (See the quotations 
and inferences in Keble's Sermons, 
pp. 392-394.) But the whole tenour of 
the narrative in Eusebius, Socrates, and 
Sozomen points to the conclusion that 
the existing tradition was alleged, not as 
authority, but as historical evidence, and 
that it was alleged subordinately to the 



argument from the Bible itself. Com- 
pare especially the paragraph at the close 
of Sozom. i. 17 : — oi Sk IcrxvpC^ovTO — 
/SouAtjs. Ibid. i. 25: fiera g-qTricrtv aiepifiri 
Kai pdaavov itolvtwv ruiv au^i^oKtav 
SoKifjLa<r9ei<Tav. A slight reminiscence 
of this aspect of the Council is preserved 
in the picture of it in the Iberian monas- 
tery at Athos, where the heretics are 
represented as eagerly poring over the 
arguments of the Orthodox. 

2 Soc. i. 8. 

* Eus. V. C. iii. 6. 



112 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA. 



LECT. IV. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE OPENING OF THE COUNCIL. 

The Emperor had already been at Nicsea on the 23rd of 
May, as we happen to learn by an edict dated from that 
Arrival of c ^ a S amst usurers in Palestine. 1 Probably he 
the Em- had come before the arrival of the Bishops, to 
ascertain that fit preparations were made for their 
reception. He had then, as it would seem, returned to 
Nicomedia, to celebrate his victory over Licinius. If he 
waited for the actual anniversary, he must have remained 
there till the 3rd of July, and consequently could not have 
arrived at Nicsea till the 5th. The earlier dates, however, 
for the opening of the Council— the 14th or the 19th of 
June — are inconsistent with so long a delay. We must be 
content, therefore, to leave the precise day in doubt. 

The first news that greeted him on his arrival must have 
been an unpleasing surprise. He had no sooner taken up 
„ his quarters in the Palace at Nicsea, than he found 

Complaints x . 

of the Bish- showered in upon him a number of parchment 
rolls, or letters, containing complaints and petitions 
against each other from the larger part 2 of the assembled 
Bishops. We cannot ascertain with certainty whether they 
were collected in a single day, or went on accumulating day 
after day. 3 It was a poor omen for the unanimity which he 
had so much at heart. 

We may indeed make some excuses. We may remember 



1 Cod. Theod. i. p. xxv. 

2 Soc. i. 8 : oi frAeioves. This contradicts the later notion that the Arians were 
the only complainants, * Soc. i. 8. 



LECT. IV. 



OPENING OF THE COUNCIL. 



113 



how, even in prison, the English Reformers maintained an 
unceasing strife with each other on the dark points of 
Calvinism. We are expressly told, both by Eusebius and 
Sozomen, that one motive 1 which had drawn many to the 
Council was the hope of settling their own private concerns 
and promoting their own private interests. It was the 
practice to seize the opportunity of solemn processions 2 
of the sovereigns to temples and afterwards to churches, as 
even now of the Sultans to mosques, in order to lay wait 
with petitions, as the only means of catching their attention. 
There, too, were the pent-up grudges and quarrels of years ; 
which now for the first time had an opportunity of making 
themselves heard. Never before had these remote, often 
obscure, ministers of a persecuted sect come within the 
range of Imperial power. He whose presence was for the 
first time so close to them, bore the same authority of which 
the Apostle had said that it was the supreme earthly dis- 
tributor of justice to mankind. Still, after all due allowance, 
it is impossible not to share in the Emperor's astonishment 
that this should have been the first act of the first CEcume- 
nical Assembly of the Christian Church. Constantine re- 
ceived the letters in silence. 3 His reply we shall hear, when 
at his own time he chooses to give it. 

The meetings of the representatives, which had up to 
this time been in the church, or gymnasium, or in separate 
Hail of As- localities, were henceforth to be solemnised in the 
sembiy. Imperial residence itself. It is with reluctance that 
later controversialists, accustomed to the idea of a Council 
meeting only within consecrated walls, will admit of this trans- 
ference. But the fact is undoubted, and is in accordance not 
only with the paramount importance of the Emperor on this 
occasion, but with the precedent already established in the 



1 Eus. V. C. iii. 6 ; Soz. i. 17. 

3 See Dufresne, npooSos. 

* It is probably this scene (with 
another later incident) which led the first 
Regius Professor of Divinity in Oxford 



to describe the Nicene fathers as a set of 
demoniacs, driven by evil furies and 
malignant passions. (Peter fuartyr, 
Comm. on 1 Kings xii.) 



114 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



LECT. IV. 



little Council in the Lateran Palace at Rome, and after- 
wards confirmed by the two Councils held in the vaulted 
room called the 1 Trullus ' in the palace at Constantinople. 
Tradition points out the spot, marked by a few broken 
columns, at the south-west angle of the walls, close by the 
shores of the lake. A solitary plane 1 tree grows on the 
ruins. The chamber prepared for their reception was a 
large oblong hall, 2 in the centre of the palace — the largest 
that it contained. Benches 3 were ranged along the walls 
on 4 each side for those of lower dignity, and seats, or 
chairs, for those of higher ; along these were ranged the 
300 prelates, perhaps with their assistant deacons and pres- 
byters. In the centre of the room, on a seat or throne, was 
placed a copy of the Holy Gospels, 5 as the nearest approach 
to the presence of Christ Himself. Every eye was fixed on 
one small vacant stall or throne, carved in wood, richly gilt, 
such as was usually 6 occupied by the sovereign at the Circus 
or Hippodrome— now placed in the upper end of the hall, 
Entrance of between the two ranges of seats. The long-sus- 
the Emperor.- tained disputations, the eager recriminations, were 
at last hushed into a deep silence. Not a voice broke the 
stillness of that expectation which precedes the coming of a 
long wished-for, unknown spectacle, the onward march of a 
distant procession. 7 Presently a stir was heard, — first one, 
then another, and then a third, of the officers of the court 
dropped in. Then the column widened. But still the 
wonted array of shields and spears 8 was absent. The 
heathen guards were not to enter the great Christian 

1 I was informed by the Bishop of in the picture at Nicsea. 

Nicsea, whom I saw at Constantinople in 6 Eus. V. C. iii. 10 : icddiana. See 

1862. that this tree is supposed to stand Dufresne in voce. 

on the site of the throne. 7 Ibid. iii. 10 : irpooBov. The word 

2 Eus. V. C. iii. ic. always used for the Imperial processions. 

3 Theod. i. 7 ; Eus. V. C. iii. 10. Dufresne in voce. 

* Niceph. viii. 16. 8 The appearance of a single guard 

* Westcott on the Canon, 496. This (speculator) at the Council of Tyre was 
at least was the custom of the later the subject of much remark. (Ath. Apol. 
Councils, as of Ephesus. (Ib. 175.) See c. Arian. 8.) 

Suicer, EvayyE'Aioi', p. 1227 ; and so it is 



lect. iv. ENTRANCE OF CONSTANTINE. 1 1 5 



assembly which had, as it were, consecrated the place where 
it sate. Only those courtiers who were converted to the 
Christian faith were allowed to herald the approach of their 
master. At last a signal from without — probably a torch 
raised by the 1 cursor,' or avant-courier 1 — announced that 
the Emperor was close at hand. The whole assembly rose 
and stood on their feet ; and then for the first time set their 
admiring gaze on Constantine, the Conqueror, the August, 
the Great. He entered. His towering stature, 2 his strong- 
built frame, his broad shoulders, his handsome features, were 
worthy of his grand position. 3 There was a' brightness in 
his look and a mingled expression of fierceness and gentle- 
ness 4 in his lion-like eye which well became one who, as 
Augustus before him, had fancied, and perhaps still fancied, 
himself to be the favourite of the Sun-god Apollo. The 
Bishops were further struck by the dazzling, perhaps barbaric, 
magnificence of his dress. Always careful of his appearance, 
he was so on this occasion in an eminent degree. His long 
hair, false or real, was crowned with the imperial diadem of 
pearls. His purple or scarlet robe blazed with precious stones 
and gold embroidery. He was shod no doubt in the scarlet 
shoes 5 then confined to the Emperors, now perpetuated in 
the Pope and Cardinals. Many of the Bishops had probably 
never seen any greater functionary than a remote provincial 
magistrate, and gazing at his splendid figure as he passed up 
the hall between their ranks — remembering too what he had 
done for their faith and for their Church — we may well be- 
lieve that the simple and the worldly both looked upon him 
as though he were an angel of God, descended straight from 
Heaven. 6 Yet the awe was not exclusively on their side. 7 



1 For the torches carried by the avant- 
couriers, see Eus. Paneg. i. 1. 

2 Eus. V. C. iii. io. 

3 See Lecture VI. 

4 Cedrenus, i. 472. 

* ' Campagi.' See Mr. Payne 
Smith's note on John of Ephesus, p. c6. 
6 Eus. V. C. iii. 10. That this feeling 



was not peculiar to Eusebius, may be 
gathered from the expressions collected 
by Dr. Newman in his learned note on 
Athanasius's Tracts, i. 59. In the pic- 
ture in the Iberian convent at Athos, the 
Sacred Dove hovers over the head (not 
of the Bishops, but) of the Emperor. 
7 See Lecture VI. 



Ii6 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



LECT. IV. 



However imperfect may have been Constantine's religion, 
yet there can be little doubt that, as far as it went, it was 
devout even to superstition. It was a solemn moment for 
him to find himself for the first time in the midst of the 
representatives of the great community of which he had so 
recently professed himself a sincere adherent. Whatever 
sacredness had before in his eyes attached to flamens and 
augurs, now in a still higher degree he transferred to the 
venerable men who stood before him, and whose very looks, 
whose very disfigurements, bore witness to the earnestness 
and energy of their young and vigorous faith. The colour 
rushed to the Emperor's cheeks. 1 We cannot forget how 
far more innocent and ingenuous was this first Imperial 
blush, than that which became memorable, ages afterwards, 
in the great Council of the Latin Church — the * blush of 
SigismandJ observed at Constance, remembered at Worms. 
It was the genuine expression of Constantine's excitement 
and emotion. As he advanced up the hall he cast his eyes 
down, his steps faltered, and when he reached the throne 
allotted to him, he stood motionless, till the Bishops 
beckoned to him to be seated. He then sat down, and they 
followed his example. 

If he was still anxious as he looked round on so many 
strange faces, he must have been reassured as he looked on 
his right hand and his left. Which of the Bishops occupied 
these places of honour has been vehemently disputed in 
later times, and it is still further complicated by the 
ambiguity of the use of the words. Was the chief seat on 
the right-hand side of the Emperor, or the right-hand side 
of the hall? Apparently, as the Emperor's seat was not 
permanently there, and as the Bishops were arranged irre- 
spectively of his entrance, the latter of these two meanings 
Hosius on must be adopted. The left-hand place has been 
the left. usually assigned to Hosius of Cordova ; and in a 
picture of the Nicene Council which adorns the Escurial 

1 Eus. V. C. iii. 10. 



lect. iv. THE EMPEROR'S SPEECH. 117 

library, the Church of Spain, in her zeal for this her eldest 
and most distinguished son, makes the very most of him. 
But Roman writers, eager to claim the first place for him, 
as the supposed representative of the Papal see, 1 have 
ingeniously argued that the left, and not the right, was, with 
the ancient Romans, the place of honour ; and further, 
what is also undoubted — although inconsistent with the 
argument just used — that the left-hand side of the hall 
would give him the right-hand side of the Emperor. 2 The 
right-hand post has been naturally more contested. In the 
picture of the Nicene Council at Nicaea itself, and also in 
the annals of the Alexandrian Church, 3 it is filled by Alex- 
ander of Alexandria. Theodoret 4 gives it to Eustathius of 
Antioch. But there can be little doubt that, as on one 
side of the Emperor sat his Western favourite Hosius, so on 
Eusebius on tne other side was his Eastern favourite Eusebius. 
the right. Twice over Eusebius has himself told us so ; and 
from him 5 we know how, as soon as Constantine and the 
assembly were seated, he rose from his place, and in 
metrical prose, if not in actual verses, recited an address to 
the Emperor, and then a hymn of thanksgiving to the 
Almighty for the victory over Licinius, of which the anni- 
versary had so lately been celebrated. Eusebius resumed 
his seat, and again a deep silence prevailed. All eyes were 
fixed on Constantine. He cast round one of those bright 



1 In ancient pictures it is observed of 
S. Peter and S. Paul, of the Virgin and 
S. John, that S. Peter and the Virgin 
are on the left hand of the Saviour. 
(Baronius, 52-60 ; Bellarmine, De Cone. 
L 19 : in Mansi, ii. 730.) 

3 In the Council of Chalcedon, the 
Legates of Rome, with the Bishops of 
Constantinople and Antioch, sat on the 
left, and the Bishops of Alexandria and 
Jerusalem on the right, of the Imperial 
officers. But there they ranged them- 
selves according to their opinions. (Tille- 
mont, xv. 649.) 

* Eutych. Ann. i. 444. 



* i. 7. He must have had some 
ground for this : as Eustathius was 
evidently one of his chief authorities for 
the events of the Council. 

5 Eus. V. C. i. i : iii. 1 ; Soz. i. 18. 
A short speech, supposed to be the one 
now spoken, but really written by Gre- 
gory of Neocaesarea in the seventh cen- 
tury, is preserved in Fabricius, Biblioth. 
Gr. ix. 132. Its use of the words nia 
ovaia ev rpi&tv virr><TTa.<re<Tt is fatal to its 
genuineness. Nicephorus (viii 16) and 
Epiphanius Scholasticus (ii. 5) give the 
first speech to Eustathius, the second to 
Eusebius. 



Ii8 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA. 



LECT. IV. 



glances of which he was master ; and then, after a momen- 
tary self-recollection, addressed them in a short speech, 
exhorting concord and unanimity. It was in Latin, — on so 
solemn an occasion he would not depart from the Imperial 
language, in which long afterwards the laws even of his 
new capital were written, — and, therefore, very few of those 
present could have understood it. But there was a gentle- 
ness and sweetness in his voice which arrested the attention 
of all ; and as soon as it was concluded the Imperial drago- 
man or interpreter translated 1 it into Greek. 

' It has, my friends, been the object of my highest 
' wishes, to enjoy your sacred company, and having 
The Em ' obtained this, I confess my thankfulness to the 
peror's « King of all, that in addition to all my other 
1 blessings He has granted to me this greatest of 
' all — I mean, to receive you all assembled together, and to 

* see one common harmonious opinion of all. Let, then, 

* no envious enemy injure our happiness, and, after the 
' destruction of the impious power of the tyrants by the 
' might of God our Saviour, let not the spirit of evil over- 
' whelm the Divine law with blasphemies ; for to me far 

* worse than any war or battle is the civil war of the Church 

* of God ; yes, far more painful than the wars which have 
' raged without. As, then, by the assent and co-operation 
' of a higher power, I have gained my victories over my 

* enemies, I thought that nothing remained but to give 

* God thanks, and to rejoice with those who have been 

* delivered by us. But since I learned of your divisions, 

* contrary to all expectations, I gave the report my first 
1 consideration ; and praying that this also might be healed 

* through my assistance, I called you all together without 

* delay. I rejoice at the mere sight of your assembly ; but 

* the moment that I shall consider the chief fulfilment of 

' Eus. V. C. iii. 13 : i4>6oftr)vevov- Greek. (Mansi, vii. 127.) A false 

to?. As late as the Council of Chal- speech of Constantine is given in Gelas. 

cedon, the Emperor Marcian spoke in iii. 7. 
Latin, which was then translated into 



lect. iv. THE MUTUAL COMPLAINTS. 



119 



' my prayers will be when I see you all joined together in 

* heart and soul, and determining on one peaceful harmony 
1 for all, which it should well become you who are conse- 
1 crated to God, to preach to others. Do not, then, delay, 

* my friends ; do not delay, ministers of God, and good 

* servants of our common Lord and Saviour, to remove all 
1 grounds of difference, and to wind up by laws of peace 
' every link of controversy. Thus will you have done what 
4 is most pleasing to the God who is over all, and you will 
' render the greatest boon to me, your fellow-servant' 1 
Theo en ^ e ^ ounc ^ was now formally opened, and 
jngof the the Emperor gave permission to the presidents of 

the assembly to commence their proceedings. 
In the Egyptian traditions this was enlarged into a 
formal authorisation of the legal powers of the Council. 
He gave to them, it was said, his ring, his sword, and his 
sceptre, with the words, ' To you I have this day given 
1 power over my empire, to do in it whatever you think fit, 
' for the promotion of religion and for the advantage of the 

* faithful.' 2 This, no doubt, is a later invention. But it is 
probably so far correct that the Emperor's intention was to 
constitute them into an independent body for the settle- 
ment of these questions, however much his personal influence 
controlled their decisions, and his authority might be needed 
for the ratification of their decrees. 3 

The plural number used by Eusebius to designate the 
presidency of the Council, renders it probable that the two 
ThePresi- Bishops of the leading sees, Alexandria and 
dents. Antioch, 4 must be amongst those intended ; the 
general testimony points to Hosius as another, who, from 
the causes already mentioned, would naturally be what he 



1 Ens. V. C. iii. 12. 

2 Eutych. i. 443. 

3 Athanasius (Apol. c. Ar. c. 9) is 
full of horror at a Count having pre- 
sided at the Council of Tyre. Tech- 
nically speaking, this was inconsistent 



with the precedents of Nicsea. But 
the Emperor's officers appeared fre- 
quently in the Council of Chalcedon. 
Mansi, vi. 822. 

4 In Facundus, i. 1, xi. 1, Eustathius 
is president. 



120 



THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. 



LECT. IV. 



is expressly styled by Athanasius, leader of all the Councils ; 
and to these, by his own account, we must add Eusebius 
of Caesarea. 

From this moment the flood-gates of debate were 
opened wide ; and from side to side recriminations and 
The mutual accusations were bandied to and fro, without 
complaints. re g arc i fa th e Imperial presence. He remained 
unmoved amidst the clatter of angry voices, turning from 
one side of the hall to the other, giving his whole attention 
to the questions proposed, bringing together the violent 
partisans. He condescended to lay aside his stately Latin, 
and addressed them in such broken Greek as he could 
command, still in that sweet and gentle voice, praising 
some, persuading others, putting others to the blush, but 
directing all his energies to that one point, which he has 
himself described as his aim, — a unanimity of decision. 1 
We have it on his own authority, that he reckoned himself 
as one of the number — as a bishop for the time being ; 2 
and that he took an active part in the discussion. It was 
probably in this first session that he put a stop to those 
personal quarrels, of which he had already had the earliest 
instalment on his arrival on the preceding day. 3 We cannot 
doubt, from the eagerness with which their complaints had 
been handed in, that this must have been the uppermost 
thought in the minds of most of the assembly when the 
debates began, and their expectation would be raised to a 
high pitch when the Emperor produced before the Council, 
from the folds of his mantle, 4 the petitions on their papyrus 



1 Eus. V. C. iii. 13. 

2 Soc. i. 9 (30.) 

3 In this I follow the account of 
Socrates, because — 

a) He is more precise in his statement 
of the days than the others. 

/') His account is confirmed by Gela- 
sius, and not absolutely contradicted by 
Rufinus and Sozomen. 

c) The mention of the purple robe in 
Theodoret, i. 10, agrees with the Em- 



peror's dress on the first day. 

d) The incident naturally finds a 
place in the general scene described by 
Eusebius, V. C. iii. 13. 

e) The impression conveyed by Euse- 
bius, V. C. iii. 12, is that the greater 
part of the assembly then saw Constan- 
tine for the first time. 

4 Rufinus, H. E. i. 2 ; ' In sinu suo 
continens.' 



lect. iv. THE EMPEROR'S ANSWER. 



121 



or parchment rolls. He pointed to them as they lay, bound 
up and sealed with his Imperial ring ; and then, after de- 
The Em c l arm g with a solemn oath 1 (his usual mode of 
peror's attestation) that he had not read one of them, he 
ordered a brazier 2 to be brought in, in which they 
were burnt at once in the presence of the assembly. Three 
speeches are given by the different historians on the oc- 
casion, each probably expressive of three different turns 
which the Emperor's mind may have taken. According to 
Socrates, after having dwelt on the importance of dismissing 
those personal disputes, if they hoped to arrive at a con- 
clusion on the great matter which had called them together, 
he added 3 just this one pregnant remark, as the parchments 
were smouldering in the flames — 1 It is the command of 
' Christ, that he who desires to be himself forgiven, must 
' first forgive his brother.' 4 According to Theodoret and 
Rufinus, there was mingled with this feeling of disgust at 
the want of Christian concord in them, and with the desire 
for it in his own mind, something of the almost superstitious 
awe which animated him, as we have already seen, in the 
presence of the Christian clergy. Perhaps, also, he may 
have intended a stroke of that quiet humour which was 
one of the happiest characteristics of his public speeches. 5 
'You have been made by God priests and rulers, to judge 
1 and decide .... and have even been made gods, so 
1 highly raised as you are above men ; for it is written — 
' " I have said ye are gods, and ye are all the children of 

* " the Most High ; " " and God stood in the congregation 
' " of the gods, and in the midst he judges the gods." 6 
1 You ought really to neglect these common matters, and 

• devote yourselves to the things of God. It is not for me 



1 For his oath, see Lecture VI. 

2 Niceph. viii. 17. 

s Soc. i. viii. 20 : i-irenriov fLrivov. 

* Dioscorus, President of the (Rob- 
ber) Council of Ephesus, rejected like 
complaints for a very different reason. 



See the excellent remarks of Theodoret, 
Ep. 147. 

s Victor, 23 : ' Irrisor potius quam 
blandus.' 
a Ruf. L a. 



122 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOffiA. 



LECT. IV. 



' to judge of what awaits the judgment of God only.' And 
as the libels vanished into ashes, he urged them — ' Never 

* to let the faults of men in their consecrated offices be 

* publicly known, to the scandal and temptation of the 

* multitude.' ' Nay/ he added, doubtless spreading out 
the folds of his Imperial mantle as he spoke, ' even though 
i I were with my own eyes to see a bishop in the com- 

* mission of gross sin, 1 I would throw my purple robe over 

* him, that no one might suffer from the sight of such a 

* crime.' 

The theological controversy which followed, though 
doubtless lightened and sweetened by this abrupt disen- 
tanglement of it from bitter personal grievances, was more 
difficult to terminate. And we have no continuous account 
of the mode in which it was conducted. We know not 
whether it lasted weeks or days. 2 Of the two eye-witnesses, 
one (Eusebius) tells us next to nothing ; the other (Athana- 
sius) writes with such a special purpose, that it is hard to 
extract from him the actual facts. Still certain incidents 
transpire, and those, in however fragmentary a manner, I 
shall now endeavour to describe. 

We have hitherto viewed the Council in its national divi- 
The Theo- S10ns j an d m lts arrangement of outward preced- 
logicaipar- ence. We now proceed to view it as it broke 

ties. . . . 

itself up into theological parties. 3 
The Orthodox side would be represented by the Alexan- 
drian Bishop and his deacon Athanasius ; the extreme right 
being occupied by the exaggerated vehemence of Marcellus 
of Ancyra. 4 

The opposite party would be represented by the three 
Bithynian Bishops, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Theognis, and 
Maris, with those prelates of Palestine and Asia Minor who 



1 Theod. i. 10. That gross licentious- 
ness was one of the complaints brought 
forward may be gathered from the 
charges brought against Eustathius of 
Antioch and Athanasius. 



2 Ruf. i. 5 : ' Per dies singulos agi- 
tabatur conventus.' 

3 This is well given in Hefele, i. 273. 

4 Ath. Apol. c. Arian. 23, 32. Cyril 
Alex. torn. v. pt. i. p. 4. 



LECT. IV. 



ITS THEOLOGICAL PARTIES. 



123 



had committed themselves to the same view, deepening on 
the extreme left into Arius himself supported by his two 
boldest adherents, Theonas and Secundus. 

The great mass of the assembled Bishops 1 would occupy 
the centre between these two extremes ; shading off on the 
one side, through men like Leontius and Hosius, into the 
party of Alexander and Athanasius ; and on the other, 
through men like Eusebius of Caesarea and Paulinus of 
Tyre, into the extreme Arian party of the Bithynian 
Bishops. 2 

The discussion was, like those which had preceded it, 
based on the principle of free inquiry, and not of authority. 
The duty— so hateful to theological adversaries — of ' exact 
'statement,* 'searching trial,' and 'hearing both sides,' is 
repeatedly and expressly mentioned, both in the narratives 
and documents of the Nicene assembly. 3 

Small as the Arian minority eventually appeared to be, it 
is clear, from the account of the debates which followed the 
opening of the Council, that they must have had a hope of 
victory. 

It may have been this confidence that caused their ruin. 
At least it appears that the chief recoil against them was 
occasioned by the overweening subtlety or rashness of their 

1 Neander (iv. 40) well points out the 14. Tarcodinatus of Mgs. 

unfairness of Athanasius in ignoring this 15. Leontius } 



by Philostorgius : 

x. Sentianus of Boreum. 

2. Dachius of Berenice. 

3. Secundus of Theuchira. 

4. Zopyrus of Barca. 

5. Secundus of Ptolemais. 

6. Theonas of M armarica. 

7. Meletius of Thebes. 

8. Patrophilus of Scythopolis. 

9. Eusebius of Casarea. 
10. Paulinus of Tyre, 
xx. Amphion of Sidon. 

12. Narcissus of Irenopolis (Nero- 



large intermediate party. 



2 The Arian bishops are thus reckoned 




20. Theognis of Niccsa. 



21. Maris of Chalcedon. 



22. Eusebius the Great of Nico- 



media. — See Walch, i. 471. 



The names in italics are also men- 
tioned by Theodoret (i. 5, 7) ; Theodoret 
of Heraclea is added by Gelasius of 
Cyzicus (ii. 7) ; and Theodoras of Lao- 
dicea, Gregory of Berytus, and Aerius of 
Lydda by Theodoret (i. 5). 



nias). 

13. Athanasius of Anazarbus. 



3 Soc. i. 9, passim. 



124 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. 



LECT. IV. 



own statements, which were all more or less aggressive. Arius, 
though as a presbyter he had no seat in the Council, was fre- 
quently called upon to express his opinions, 1 and was usually 
confronted with Athanasius. 2 It was, now, apparently, that 
The Thalia tne Council first heard the songs which Arius had 
of Anus. written under the name of Thalia 3 for the sake of 
popularising his speculations with the lower orders. The 
songs were set to tunes, or written in metres, which had 
acquired a questionable reputation from their use in the 
licentious verses of the heathen poet Sotades ordinarily used 
in the low revels or dances of Alexandria , and the grave 
Arius himself is said, in moments of wild excitement, to 
have danced like an Eastern Dervish, whilst he sang these 
abstract statements in long straggling lines, of which about 
twenty are preserved to us. 4 To us the chief surprise is that 
any enthusiasm should have been excited by sentences 5 such 
as these — ' God was not always Father ; once he was not 
1 Father ; afterwards he became Father.' But, in proportion 
to the attraction which they possessed for the partisans of 
Arius, was the dismay which they roused in the minds of 
those by whom the expressions which Arius thus lightly set 
aside were regarded as the watchwords of the ancient faith. 
The Bishops, on hearing the song, raised their hands in 
horror, and after the manner of Orientals, when wishing to 
express their disgust at blasphemous words, kept their ears 
fast closed, and their eyes fast shut. 6 

The Legend It was doubtless at this point that occurred 
of s. Nicolas, incident, whatever it be, embodied in the 
legend which I have before noticed, of the sudden outbreak 



1 Ruf. i. 5. He was there by the 
Emperor's command. (Ib. i. i.) 

2 See Lecture III. p. 99. A ficti- 
tious 1 Dispute of Athanasius and Arius ' 
is found in Athanasius's works, ii. 
p. 205. 

3 Soc. i. 9, 29. Apollinarius did the 
same. His songs were sung at banquets, 
and at work, and by women weaving. 
Soz. vi. 25. 



* Ath. Or. c. Ar. i. 4. 

5 The extracts are given in Ath. Or. 
c. Ar. i. 5- 

6 Ath. Or. c. Ar. i. 7. Ath. ad Ep- 
in Egyyt. 13 : eKparovf rds aieod;. Conf. 
Acts. vii. 56 : crvi>ecr\ov to wra. This 
incident has given rise to the groundless 
complaint of the Polish theologian, 
Sandius, that Arius was condemned 
unheard. 



LECT. IV. 



THE CREED OF ARIUS. 



125 



of fury in Nicolas, Bishop of Myra, who is represented in 
the traditional pictures of the Council as dealing a blow 
with all his force at Arius's jaw. It is this incident, real or 
imaginary, that gave some colour to the charge of violence 
brought by Peter Martyr against the Nicene fathers. But 
the story itself bears witness to the humane spirit which 
exalts this earliest Council above its successors. The legend, 
best known in the West, goes on to say that for this intem- 
perate act S. Nicolas was deprived of his mitre and pall, 
which were only restored to him long afterwards by the 
intervention of angels ; so that in many old pictures he 
is represented as bareheaded, and with his shoulders un- 
covered. 1 But in the East, the story assumes a more precise 
and more polemical form. The Council, it is said, on Arius's 
appeal, imprisoned and deprived the Bishop of Myra. But 
in prison, the Redeemer, whose honour he had vindicated, 
appeared with his mother ; the One restored to him the 
Gospel, the other the pall ; and with these credentials he 
claimed and obtained his freedom. 2 It is not often that the 
contradiction between Christ as He is in the Evangelical 
history, and Christ as He is in the fancies of theologians, is 
so strongly brought out. 

At this same conjuncture it must have been that the first 
draft of a Creed was produced in the Council, signed by the 
The Creed eighteen 3 extreme Arian partisans. Its contents 
of Anus. are not gi veru g ut j t was received with tumul- 
tuous disapprobation ; the document was torn to pieces, 
and the subscribers, all except Theonas and Secundus, 
gave up Arius on the spot, and he was removed from the 
assembly. 

These violent attacks and explosions were, however, in 

1 Nauclerus, Chronographia, 506. Athos- The vision in the prison is a 

Molanus, Hist. Sacr. Imag. iii< 53. frequent subject of pictures there. 

(Ittig. § 38.) Molanus interprets the 1 Theod. i. 6. For the eighteen 

absence of mitre and pall as an indica- Bishops see p. 123- It was probably 

tion of the schism and degradation of the from combining the minority with the 

Greek Church. round numbers of the majority that the 

* This version I heard in Mount traditional number of 318 was attained. 



126 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. 



LECT. IV. 



all probability, mere episodes in the assembly. The main 
object of the Emperor in convening the Council was not to 
lengthen divisions, but to secure a unanimous signature to 
its final report. Like our own Elizabeth, he regarded the 
points at issue as of less moment than the formation of one 
compact Imperial Church. As may be seen in public meet- 
ings and discussions of every-day occurrence, the devotion 
of any one leading person to this single aim is almost sure to 
succeed. Two powerful efforts were made for this purpose 
by the Emperor's two chief advisers — the supporters of what 
I have called the central party, the cross benches of the 
assembly ; and from a combination of these two, the desired 
result was finally brought to pass. 

The solution of the difficulty was sought in the produc- 
tion of an ancient Creed, which had existed before the rise 
of the controversy. Excellent and obvious as such a solu- 
tion always is, this seems to have been the first attempt of 
Creed of tne kind. It was proposed by Eusebius of Caesarea. 
Eusebius^ He announced that the confession of faith which 
he was about to propose was no new form — it was 
the same which he had learnt in his childhood from his pre- 
decessors in the see of Caesarea 1 during the time that he 
was a catechumen, and at his baptism, and which he taught 
for many years, as Presbyter and as Bishop. It had been 
approved by the Emperor, 2 the beloved of Heaven, who had 
already seen it. It accorded with his own view, that Divine 
things cannot be precisely described in human language. He 
held strongly the modern theological doctrine, that the Finite 
can never grasp the Infinite. 3 

This Creed was as follows : — 1 1 believe in one God, the 

* Father Almighty, Maker of ail things both visible and 

* invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, 

* God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only be- 

* gotten Son, the Firstborn of every creature, begotten of 



1 Ath de Decret. Syn. Nic 32. 
a Ibid. 



3 Eus. Eccl. Theo. i. 12. (Neander, 
Hist. iv. 35.) 



LECT. IV. 



THE CREED OF ARIUS. 



12/ 



* the Father before all worlds, by whom also all things were 

* made. Who for our salvation was made flesh and lived 
1 amongst men, and suffered, and rose again on the third 
1 day, and ascended to the Father, and shall come in glory 

* to judge the quick and the dead. And we believe in One 
« Holy Ghost. Believing each of them to be and to have 
1 existed, the Father, only the Father, and the Son, only the 
f Son, and the Holy Ghost, only the Holy Ghost : As also 
1 our Lord sending forth His own disciples to preach, said, 
' " Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name 
4 " of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost ; " 

* concerning which things we affirm that this is so, and that 

* we so think, and that it has long so been held, and that 

* we remain steadfast to death for this faith, anathematising 
' every godless heresy. That we have thought these things 

* from our heart and soul, from the time that we have 

* known ourselves, and that we now think and say thus in 

* truth, we testify in the name of Almighty God, and of our 

* Lord Jesus Christ, being able to prove even by demonstra- 

* tion, and to persuade you that in past times also thus we 
' believed and preached.' 

We recognise at once the basis of the present Nicene 
Creed, and it is a pleasing reflection that this basis was 
the Creed of the Church of Palestine. We have Eusebius's 
express declaration that it was what he had himself always 
been taught in his own native city of Caesarea in the plains 
of Sharon; and the fact that this declaration occurs in a 
letter to the inhabitants of that very place is a guarantee for 
the truth of his statement. An additional confirmation is 
supplied by its likeness to the Creed preserved by Cyril, in 
the neighbouring Church of Jerusalem. One phrase, which 
dropped out of the Creed in its subsequent passage through 
the Council, must have had a touching sound as repeated 
amongst the hills and valleys of the Holy Land ; ' who for 
4 our salvation lived amongst men.' 

The Emperor had read and approved this Confession. 



128 THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. lect. iv. 



The Arian minority were willing to adopt it. But this very 
fact was in the eyes of the opposite party a fatal difficulty. 
They were determined to find some form of words which 
no Arian could receive. They seemed to see sinister glances, 
to hear dark mutterings interchanged among their oppo- 
nents, 1 as this or that orthodox expression was mentioned ; 
on every term, ' God,' ' Image,' ' Power,' was put some 
interpretation which just eluded the desired meaning. Texts 
were quoted from Scripture, and even from the Shepherd of 
Hermas, to show the large sense of the disputed words. At 
last the weapon which they had been seeking to cut off the 
head of their enemy, was suddenly drawn from his own scab- 
bard. 2 A letter was produced from Eusebius of Nicomedia, 
in which he declared that to assert the Son to be uncreated 
would be to say that He was ' of one substance ' (opoovo-iov) 
with the Father — and therefore that to say, * He was of one 
* substance,' was a proposition evidently absurd. 

The letter produced violent excitement. There was the 
very test of which they were in search. T he letter was torn 
in pieces 3 to mark their indignation, and the phrase which he 
had pledged himself to reject became the phrase which they 
pledged themselves to adopt. 

The decisive expression £ of one substance' was not 
altogether unknown. It was one of those remarkable words 
The Ho- which creep into the language of philosophy and 
moousion. theology, and then suddenly acquire a permanent 
hold on the minds of men. 4 Predestination,' ' Original Sin,' 
'Prevenient Grace,' 'Atonement;' — there is an interest 
attaching to the birth, the growth, the dominion of words 
like these, almost like that which attaches to the birth and 
growth and dominion of great men or great institutions. 

1 Ath. de Dec. Syn. Nic. c. 19, 20 ; described in page 125 ; sometimes with 

ad Afros, 5, 6: TovOopv^ovras xai Sia- that of Eusebius of Caesarea in page 126; 

vevoirac Tot? h(bBakfxol<;. but the first supposition is disproved by 

3 Ambrose de Fide, iii. 15. the order of events, and the second by 

3 Eustathius apud Theod. i. 7. The the mention of Nicomedia in the work of 

document here mentioned has been iden. Ambrose de Fide, iii. 15. Comp. Nean* 

tified sometimes with the Creed of Arius, der, iv. 4a 



LECT. IV. 



THE HOMOOUSION. 



129 



Such a phrase was the singular compound ' Homoousion : ' 
in its native Greek, though abstract yet simple, and in its 
own metaphysical element, almost natural ; but in the Latin 
and Teutonic languages becoming less and less intelligible, 
though even there, as ' Consubstantial,' ' of one substance/ 
retaining a force which the contemporary phrases like 
* Circumincession ' and ' Projection ' have entirely lost. 
The history of the word is full of strange vicissitudes. 1 It 
was born and nurtured, if not in the home, at least on the 
threshold, of heresy. It first distinctly appeared in the state- 
ment, given by Irenaeus, of the doctrines of Valentinus, 2 then 
for a moment acquired a more Orthodox reputation in the 
writings of Dionysius 3 and Theognostus of Alexandria ; then 
it was coloured with a dark shade by association with the 
teaching of Manes ; 4 next proposed as a test of Orthodoxy 
at the Council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata; and 
then by that same Council was condemned as Sabellian. 

On the present occasion it is said to have been first talked 
over at Nicomedia when Alexander met with Hosius on his 
way to the Council. 5 The immediate cause of its selection 
in the Council we have already seen. As soon as it was put 
forth a torrent of invective was poured out against it by the 
Arians. It was, so they maintained, unscriptural, heretical, 
materialistic. It was Sabellian. It was Montanistic. It 
denied the separate existence of the Son. 6 It implied a 
physical cohesion of the various parts of the Godhead. 7 On 
the other hand, Athanasius and his friends retorted, that it 
was not more unscriptural than the dogmatic language of 
Arius himself ; that if not found in Scripture in the actual 
form in which they proposed it, it was found at least in com- 

1 For a general account of it, see writers ascribed to a later age. 
Suicer's Thes. tn voce : Newman's 3 Apud Ath. de Cyn. 43. 

Anans, c. li. § 4 ; Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. • Ath. de Syn. 16. 

h. 1, 16. 6 Philost. i. 7. 

' Adv. Haer. i. 5, 1 ; i. 5, 5- The 6 Soc. i. 23. 

Dialogue of Origen contra Marcion, 7 As of particles of gold in a mass, of 

a.d. 230, and the treatise 1 Pcemander,' a child to a parent, of a tree to a root. 

a.d. 120, to which Bull refers as con- Soc. i. 8. 
taining the expression, are by recent 

K 



13© 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA. 



LECT. IV. 



pound words and in roots of words : if not ofioovo-ios (Homo- 
ousios), at least there were Periousios and Epiousios ; if not 
ousia itself, there was ovaa aei (ousa aei), ' always existing.' 1 
If it had been used by heretics, and been condemned as 
heretical, this had been in another sense. It had been de- 
fended by at least one Orthodox 2 writer of former times. It 
was found in sense, if not in words, 3 both in Scripture and 
in the Fathers. If the acceptance of it seemed to savour of 
recent Sabellianism, the rejection of it seemed to involve 
Polytheism, and a return to the ancient Paganism. 4 

The historian Socrates, 5 looking back on this and similar 
debates from the next century, compares the combatants to 
two armies engaged in a battle at night, neither knowing the 
meaning of the other's terms ; each agreeing in the personal 
existence of the Son, and acknowledging the Unity of God 
in Three ' Persons,' yet unable to agree or to rest in their 
common belief. Nor was this view altogether alien from the 
calmer judgment of the great Athanasius himself. He, as 
Bishop Kaye has well observed, 6 rarely if ever uses the dis- 
puted word in his own statements of the truth ; he avoids 
it as if it had a dangerous sound ; and also, with a modera- 
tion and an insight unusual in the chief of a theological 
party, he is willing, unlike the extremer partisans of his 
school, to surrender the actual word if it caused offence to 
weaker brethren, and if there was reason to suppose that the 
same sense was intended. 

The course of many centuries has taken out of this 
famous word alike its heretical associations and its polemical 
bitterness. At the time, it indicated the exact boundary, 
the water-mark, which the tide of controversy had reached. 
When Hosius 7 had been at Alexandria with Constantine's 
letter of pacification, he had endeavoured to mediate between 
the contending parties, by attacking the Sabellian as well as 

1 Ambrose de Fid. Hi. 15. 5 Ibid. 

3 Ath. de Syn. 43. " Kaye on Nicsea, p. 57. See Lec» 

* Ibid. i. 270. ture VII. 

* Soc. 1. 23. 7 Soc. iii. 7. 



lect. iv. ACQUIESCENCE OF CONSTANTINE. 



the Arian controversialists. Two words had then come into 
antagonism, of which one was closely connected with the 
epithet now about to be introduced — ousia and 

The con- 1 , . ■ 

troversyre- hypostasis. These words, which in the Greek of 

specting . . . . . . 

ettsia and that time were almost identical in meaning, and 
hypostasis. ^ w \i[ c h the Latin language almost used the one 
(substantia— hypostasis) as the translation of the other (ousia) , 
were just beginning to show the divergencies which afterwards 
dragged them to the opposite points of the theological com- 
pass. When, therefore, the ' Homoousion ' appeared in the 
Nicene debates, it seemed a favourable opportunity for the 
advocates of the several meanings of these two cognate words 
to press on the Council this decision also. But the leading 
members of the assembly had gone as far as they could. If 
Athanasius showed in youth the same moderation on this 
question that he afterwards displayed in age, 1 he must have 
thrown his weight into the decision at which the Council 
arrived, to allow not a word to be said on the subject. The 
phrase ousia was just named in the Creed itself. But the 
phrase hypostasis was mentioned only in allusion to a con- 
demned error, and in such a context as to confound the two 
terms together, and, so far as in the Council lay, to render 
impossible the antithesis between ousia and hypostasis (sub- 
stance and person), which was made the basis of later con- 
fessions. 

To the formula, as thus limited, the consent of the 
Emperor was now to be obtained. He would be led to 
Acquies- acquiesce in the term Homoousion from the 
cenceof motives which had guided him throughout. He 

Constantme. . . . ~. _ ' . , . 

saw that the Creed of Eusebius could never, in its 
original form, gain the assent of the Orthodox, that is, the 
most powerful part of the assembly. He trusted that by 
this insertion they might be gained, and yet that, under the 
pressure of fear and favour, the others might not be alto- 
gether repelled. He therefore took the course the most 

1 See Lecture VII. 
K 2 



132 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. 



LECT. IV. 



likely to secure this result, and professed himself the patron 1 
and also the interpreter of the new phrase. The various 
sections that gathered round Eusebius of Csesarea had, on 
a previous occasion, been forced into dead silence, by their 
own divisions. 2 But now, by their acceptance of the Em- 
peror's terms of peace, they, In their turn, checked the 
vehemence of their opponents ; and another silence, no less 
profound, fell on the chief speakers of he Orthodox party. 3 
In this silence, the time was now come for the other coun- 
sellor of Constantine to come forward. On the left-hand 
side of the hall, Hosius of Cordova 4 rose and announced the 
completion of the Faith or Creed of the Council of Nicaea. 
The actual Creed was written out 5 and read, perhaps in con- 
sideration of Hosius's ignorance of Greek, by Hermogenes, 
a priest or deacon of Csesarea in Cappadocia, who appears, 
at least on this occasion, to have acted as secretary to the 
Council. In the copies shown at the Council of Chalcedon, 
the 19th of June was the date affixed. 6 But this does not 
seem to have been formally incorporated in the Creed, in 
order (it was said) to avoid the inference that the faith which 
it professed was the creation of any single month or day. 7 
The Creed 8 ' We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, 
of Nicaa. < Maker 9 of all things both visible and invisible : 

* And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten 
* of the Father, 10 only begotten, that is to say, of the substance 
1 of the Father, God of God, 11 Light of Light, very God of 
very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with 
the Father, by whom all things were made, both things in 

1 Eus. ad Caes. (Theod. i. 12). * This is contrasted with the pre- 

s Ath. de Dec. Nic. Syn.. 3. cise date affixed by the Arians to the 

s Eustath. apud Theod. i. 8. Creed of Ariminum. Ath. de Syn. c. 3, 

* Ath. ad Monach. 42 : ovtos Iv 4> 5- 
Ni/ccua nia-Tiv e^eOero. 8 The parts which have since been 

5 Basil, Epp. 81 and 244. In the added to the text of the Creed are in- 
picture before described in the Iberian serted in the notes. The parts which 
convent at Mount Athos, Athanasius have been since omitted are in italics. 

is represented as seated on the ground, 9 ' of heaven and earth ' 

in his deacon'i dress, writing out the 10 ' before all worlds * 

Creed. " See p. 143. 

6 Mansi, vi. 957 



LECT. IV. 



THE CREED OF NIC^A. 



133 



* heaven and things in earth — who for us men and for our 

* salvation came down 1 and was made flesh, 2 and was made 
4 man, 3 suffered, 4 and rose again on the third day; 5 went up 

* into the heavens, and is to come again 6 to judge the quick 
'and dead. 7 

« And in the Holy Ghost. 8 

'-But those that say, " there was whe?i He was not" and 

* " before He was begotten He was not" arid that " He came 
' " into existence from what was not" or who profess that 

* the Son of God is of a differ m ent "person " or " substance" 
' (erepas i>7rooTao-ecos 17 ovctas 9 ), or that He is created, or 
1 changeable, or variable, are anathe?Jiatised by the Catholic 
« Church: 

In this 'the Faith set forth at Nicsea,' we have the 
altered shape in which the Creed of Caesarea was established 
as the Creed of the whole Church. Compared with the 
Creed of which it is a modification, or with the later en- 
largements of which mention shall be made presently, its 
most striking feature is extreme abruptness of form, which 
well indicates the desire of its framers not to go a hair's 
breadth beyond what was needed for the special occasion. 

To the Emperor it had been already exhibited in 
private, and was now doubtless exhibited publicly. Ac- 
Theimpe cor ding to tne Egyptian traditions, 10 the Bishops, 
rial confir- on presenting him with the Creed, girt on his side 
the sword which he had given into their hands 
at the beginning of the Council, saying — ' This Christian 
1 Faith (or Creed) do thou now openly profess and defend.' 
Fabulous as this story probably is, yet something of this 

1 ' from the heavens ' 8 Here follows the addition, from the 

2 ' of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin words ' the Lord, the Giver of Life,' to 
Mary ' See p. 143. the words ' the life of the world to come. 

3 'and was crucified for us under Amen.' 

Pontius Pilate and ' 9 Ruf. i. 6 : 'ex alia subsistentia aut 

4 ' and was buried ' substantia.' I have used ' person ' as the 

5 ' according to the Scriptures ' recognised equivalent of inrocn-ao-i?. 
8 ' with glory ' The Authorised Version has ' person ' in 
' 'and of his kingdom there shall be Heb. i. 3, ' substance ' in Heb. xi. 1. 

no end.' 10 Eutychius, i. 444. 



134 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOffiA. 



LECT. IV. 



kind may have occurred as the basis of a like practice in 
the Russian Church when the Czar pronounces the Creed 
at his Coronation. But there was a more substantial exem- 
plification of the lesson which the story no doubt was meant 
to convey. Whether from the awe which Ccnstantine 
entertained for the persons of Christian Bishops, or from 
his desire to enforce unanimity in the Church at any cost, 
he, now that the Creed was determined, entirely changed 
his tone respecting the doctrines against which it was 
levelled. With the rapidity with which some remarkable 
men, even of high intelligence and wide views, throw them- 
selves from one state of mind into another, seeing only for 
the time that which is immediately before them, and seem- 
ing to forget that they have ever held opposite language 
or opposite opinions, Constantine not only received the 
decision of the Bishops 1 as a divine inspiration, but issued 
a decree of banishment against all who refused to subscribe 
the Creed, denounced Arius and his disciples as impious, 
and ordered that he and his books should follow the fate 
of the Pagan Porphyry ; that he and his school should be 
called Porphyrians, and his books burned, under penalty of 
death to anyone who perused them. 2 

In the Council itself the feelings which the recitation of 
the Creed excited must have been various. To the more 
simple and illiterate of the assembly it probably conveyed 
the general impression of a noble assertion of the great- 
ness and divinity of the Saviour of mankind. But the 
more learned disputants of Alexandria probably fixed their 
attention on the three debated points, (two of which have 
since dropped out of the Creed altogether,) namely, the 
Homoousion, the definition of the words ' only begotten/ 
and the anathema. To see how these portions would be 
received by those against whom they were aimed was now 
the critical question. 

As the Creed of Nicsea is the first deliberate compo- 

1 Ruf. i. s ; Soc, i. 9, 30, " Soc. i. 9, 31, 32. 



LECT. IV. 



THE SUBSCRIPTIONS. 



135 



sition of Articles of Faith, so the signatures at Nicsea form 
the first example of subscription to such articles. The 
The sub- actual subscriptions remained till the beginning of 
scriptions. the next century, 1 and some imperfect lists have 
been preserved in various forms. At the head of all these 
lists is Hosius of Cordova : 'So I believe, as above written; ' 
followed by the Bishop of Rome as represented by his two 
presbyters. 'We have subscribed for our Bishop, who is 
' the Bishop of Rome. So he believes as above is written.' 2 
But the main question was whether those who would 
have been satisfied to adopt the Creed of Eusebius without 
these additions, could be satisfied to adopt it with them. 
There was much hesitation. It is impossible, at this 
distance of time, and with the imperfect accounts of the 
transaction, to judge how far the recusants were influenced 
by an attachment to the positive dogma of Arius, or how 
far they were sincerely scandalised by an expression which 
appeared to them to savour of Sabellianism or Manicheism ; 
or again how far their reluctance was occasioned by 
scruples of their own, or from fear of offending their con- 
stituents. Eusebius describes in his own case what pro- 
bably took place more or less in the case of many 
s£ptionof others. He took a day for consideration. 3 He 
cS S s2i?° f determined to consult what we should call the 
' animus imponentis ' — the mind of the imposer. 
This was easy enough. It was his own master, the Em- 
peror. Constantine declared that the word, as he under- 
stood it, involved no such material unity of the Persons in 
the Godhead as Eusebius feared might be deduced from 
it. In this sense, therefore, the Bishop of Caesarea adopted 
the test, and vindicated his adoption of it in a letter to his 
diocese. The anathemas against the dogmatic statements 
of Arius presented perhaps a more serious difficulty. But 
here again Eusebius wrote to his Syrian flock that there 

1 Epiph. Haer. lxix. 11. Jer. adv. ' Spicil. Soles, i. 516. 

Lucif. so (ii. 193). 1 Ath. de Dec. Nic. Syn. 3. 



136 THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA. lect. iv. 

was a sense in which he could fairly condemn the use of 
these expressions, even though he might agree in the truth 
which they had been intended to express. They were 
none of them scriptural terms, and as such were (so the 
Orthodox party themselves had justly pointed out) liable to 
the same objections as those which Eusebius and his 
friends had brought against the homdousion. And in this 
view he was further fortified by the suggestion of the Em- 
peror, that in two of the expressions ('there was when He 
was not,' and ' before He was begotten He was not'), taken 
literally, there was a contradiction with the doctrine held 
even by Arius himself, ' that the Son was begotten before 
all worlds, and that there must have been a potential exist- 
* ence even before the actual creation.' With these reason- 
ings, which much resembled those which reconciled the 
Jansenists to the Papal Bull condemning the opinions of 
Jansenius, Eusebius satisfied himself, and hoped to satisfy 
his excitable congregation in Palestine. Others of the 
same, or even more extreme views, including Paulinus, 
Menophantus, Patrophilus, and Narcissus, followed his 
example. They even sprang forward in eager repudiation 
of the condemned 1 dogma. 

Eusebius of Nicomedia, with the two other Bithynian 
Bishops, of Nicaea and of Chalcedon, 2 was less accommo- 
The sub- dating ; indeed he had committed himself more 
scription of deeply, both to Arius personally, and to the con- 

Eusebius _ V J '. .j. .. J \. rr . 

of Nico- demnation of the test. In this difficulty he con- 
sulted not the Emperor, but his own special 
patroness the Princess Constantia, widow of Licinius, then 
living at Nicomedia. No doubt her views, though more 
decidedly Arian 3 than her brother's, leaned to the same 
general conclusion of a wish for uniformity ; and she per- 
suaded them to comply, urging (what it is said the Bishops 



1 Eustath. apud Theod. i. 8 : irpo- 17 the first, and 6 the final, recalcitrants. 
nTjSjjo-aiTe? avaOe^ari^ovcri. to dn-^yo- 2 Soc. i. 8. 

ptviuvov fibyjma. Rufinus (i. 5) makes s See Lecture VI. 



lect. iv. THE SUBSCRIPTIONS. 



137 



themselves urged some years afterwards to Constantine 
himself) that they must be unwilling by their individual 
scruples to protract a controversy which had already caused 
him so much anxiety, and which, they feared, might, if 
continued, have the effect of driving him back in disgust to 
his original Paganism. 1 

There were two stories circulated in after times respect- 
ing this signature, which cannot both be literally true, but 
which curiously represent the feelings of the time. One, 
apparently proceeding from the Orthodox party, described 
how, in later years, Eusebius and his friends had bribed 
the keeper of the Imperial archives to let them have access 
to the documents of the Council, in order to erase their 
names ; 2 and that Eusebius had then openly repudiated 
the homdousion, and in the presence of the Emperor torn off 
a piece of his dress, and said, ' What I thus see divided I 
' will never believe to be of the same substance.' Another 
story proceeded from the extreme Arian party, savouring of 
that peculiar bitterness with which the more eager partisans 
of a failing cause attack its more moderate and more con- 
ciliating adherents. According to them, the advice of 
Constantia took a more precise form. The fact, remarked 
by Gibbon, that the controversy between homdousion and 
homoiousion turned upon the use of a single letter, would 
naturally occur (so it was said) to the quick mind of the 
Princess, not merely as a mental, but as a physical and 
literal solution of the difficulty ; and accordingly Eusebius, 
Theognis, and Maris satisfied their consciences, and the 
wishes of their Imperial patron and patroness, by dexter- 
ously inserting an iota into the text of the Creed, 3 and then 
subscribing it without scruple. 

They still, however, refused their assent to the anathe- 
mas, on the ground already noticed, that though the opinions 



1 Soz. iii. r, 9. says, probably from this story, that the 

3 lb. iii. 21. Arians generally satisfied the Council by 

* Philost. i. 8. Sulp. Severus (il 40) substituting 6/noi- for o/mo-ouVioi'. 



138 



THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. 



LECT. IV. 



condemned were false, they were not the opinions held 
Banishment by Arius, as they knew from personal knowledge 
of Ensebius. 0 f tfiQ ma n himself. This partial assent, however, 
did not satisfy the Emperor. Against Eusebius of Nico- 
media there was, besides, a personal grudge, as having 
favoured the rebel Licinius. He and Theognis, therefore, 
were deposed from their sees, Amphion and Chrestus were 
substituted for them, and the edict of banishment was 
issued. Once more they entreated the powerful favour of 
Constantia, or of her party, with the Emperor ; and, on 
their sending to the Council a final submission and ex- 
planation of their difficulties, were received, and subscribed 
all the decrees. The date of this last act is not easy to 
ascertain, but it must have been before the close of the 
Council. 1 

There remained 2 only the extreme section of the Arian 
party — the Bishops Theonas and Secundus, Arius himself, 
the deacon Euzoius, the reader Achillas, and the presbyter 
Saras. Secundus seems to have agreed in the general 
doctrine of the Creed, but refused to sign the anathemas. 
He left the Council after an indignant remonstrance against 
Eusebius of Nicomedia for his first subscription. ' Thou 
Banishment 1 hast subscribed to escape banishment, but within 
hispm- and ' tn e year thou shalt be as I am. ; His prediction 
panions. was on jy partially fulfilled. The five companions 
were banished indeed, in pursuance of the Imperial decree, 
to Galatia and Illyria. But in the rapid turns of fortune or 
of disposition which seem to have accompanied the de- 
cision of the Nicene Council, not unlike those at the period 
of the English Reformation — they were, before the close of 



1 Soc. i. 14 (42) ; Theod. i. 19. The 
long negotiations about these Bishops 
seem to imply that at least a month mu^t 
have passed between the drawing up of 
the Creed and the dissolution of the 
Council. 

a The tradition of a distinction be- 
tween the mass of the Arian party and a 



few obstinate impenitents, is preserved in 
a picture of the Counc.il in the Iberian 
convent at Mount Athos. A crowd of 
heretics are represented as being admitted 
to re-union ; whilst a smaller band is 
driven into a tower or prison by an Im- 
perial officer armed with a stout club. 



lect. iv. BANISHMENT OF THE RECUSANTS. 1 39 

the assembly, recalled, 1 and were favourably received after 
subscription to the Nicene decrees. So we are informed 
by Jerome, 2 on the authority of old men still living in 
his time, who had been present at the Council, and of the 
authentic acts of the Council, where their names were still 
to be seen. 

Arius himself disappeared before the close of the Council. 
His book, Thalia, was burnt on the spot ; and this example 
was so generally followed, that it became a very rare work. 
Sozomen had heard of it, but had never seen it. 3 Constan- 
tine, also, if the letter be really his, condescended to an 
invective against him, mixed in almost equal proportions of 
puns on his name, of jests on his personal appearance, of 
eager attacks upon his doctrine, and of supposed prophecies 
against him in the Sibylline books ; and his letter (or docu- 
ments corresponding to it) was posted up in the different towns 
of the empire. 4 Yet the immediate fate of Arius himself is 
involved in mystery. In the official letter of the Council to 
the Alexandrian Church, it is studiously concealed. In the 
traditions of the remote East, he was believed to have died 
on the spot under the curse of Jacob of Nisibis. 5 But, in 
fact, he was allowed to return, to be received with Theonas 
and Euzoius, either before the conclusion of the Council, 
or shortly after, with no further penalty than a prohibition 
against returning to Alexandria. 6 A singular custom in 



1 It is not expressly stated that Theo- 
nas and Secundus were recalled before 
the end of the Council. Philostorgius 
(i. 8) says they were recalled afterwards 
when the Emperor became Arian. But 
the name of Secundus appears amongst 
the signatures. (Godef. ad i.) 

2 Adv. Lucif. c. 20. So also Socrates 
justly infers from the letter of Eusebius 
and Theognis (i. 14). 

3 Soz. i. 22. 

* Broglie (i. 398) places this letter 
before the Council, relying on Epiphanius 
(Haer. lix. 9). But Epiphanius's account 
is evidently a confusion of the earlier 



with the later relations of the Emperor 
to Arius, and the testimony of Socrates 
(i. 9, 1 5) is decisive the other way : 
Ha.vr)yvpiKti>Tepoi> ypdipas Travraxov ko-tol 
n-oAeis TTpo<T60r)ice, SiatfWjUGjSeoy «ai r<p 
Tir)? etpttiveias rjOei Sia^dAAw;' avroi'. 
This passage (1) confirms the genuine- 
ness of the Emperor's letter ; (2) gives 
some explanation of it, as a mere ironical 
and rhetorical display ; and (3) shows 
that it was written after the Council. 

s Biblioth. Patr. v. p. civ. 

a Hieron. c. Lucif. 20, ii. 192 ; Soc. i 
14, 2 ; Scz. ii. 16. 



140 



THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA. 



LECT. IV. 



Alexandria commemorated this prohibition. There alone in 
Christendom, no presbyter was allowed to preach. 1 

This general amnesty, after such a struggle, and after the 
announcement of measures in appearance so severe, is to 
The Am- De ascribed to two causes. The first is that feel- 
nesty. m g 0 f goodwill which I before 2 described as the 
almost necessary result of any general gathering of men not 
wholly devoured by faction. The distance between Arius 
and Marcellus, on the two extremes, was so broken by the 
intervening stages of opinion, that it was probably found 
almost impossible to refuse to one shade of opinion what 
had been granted to another. In this respect the clemency 
of the Council of Nicaea stood out in strong relief against 
the severity of later Councils, the savage treatment of Nes- 
torius at Ephesus, or of Huss at Constance ; and remained 
a standing protest, to which S. Jerome could justly appeal, 
against the harsh intolerance of the Luciferians, who, rather 
than receive a single Bishop tainted with Arianism, would 
have excommunicated the whole Christian world. 

But there was also another reason which facilitated the 
amnesty in the case of the Nicene Council. It is evident rhat 
The finality Dotn at tne ^ me an d l° n g afterwards their decision 
Nicene °^ ^ orthodox faith was looked upon as final. 
Creed. When, indeed, the Mussulman chroniclers 3 imagine 
that the doctrines of Christianity, unsettled before, were 
settled once for all at Nicaea, this is an exaggeration. But 
it is certain that the Creed of Nicaea was meant to be an end 
of theological controversy, The ' Word of the Lord, which 
' was given in the (Ecumenical Council of Nicaea,' says 
Athanasius, 'remaineth for ever.' Those who had drawn it 
up were emphatically the fathers of Nicaea. To it was ap- 
plied the text, ' Remove not the ancient landmark which thy 



1 Soc. v. 22 (298). Philostorgius 
(ii. 1) says that Alexander was induced 
by Constantine to subscribe a formula 
renouncing the homdousion ; that on this 
Arius communicated with him ; but that 



Alexander once more returned to hi» 
former position. 

2 See Lecture II. p. 73. 

3 Hist. Patr. Alex. 76. 



lect. iv. FINALITY OF THE NICENE CREED. 141 



fathers have set.' 1 No addition was contemplated ; it was 
of itself sufficient to refute every heresy. 

They believed, and their immediate successors believed, 
that they were, under Constantine, beginning the final stage 
of the Church's history. This belief continued, even after 
the growth of new controversies and the convention of new 
Councils might have seemed to call for a new Profession 
of Faith. Particular Churches retain their special Creeds. 
But the Nicene Creed remained the one public confession. 

. , The Council of Sardica declared that it was amply 

Sanctioned , 1 J 

by the^Coun- sufficient, and that no second Creed should ever 
dica, by tbe appear. 2 When the next General Council met in 
ConstanS- 38 1 at Constantinople, although it had to con- 
nopie, ixont two new heresies — those of Apollinarius and 
Macedonius — it did not venture to do more than recite the 
original Creed of Nicsea. The additions which now appear 
in that Creed, and which are commonly ascribed to the 
Fathers of Constantinople, did probably then make their 
appearance. But they were not drawn up by that Council. 
They are found seven years before in the writings of Epi- 
phanius; 3 and although they may have been put into the 
exact form in which we now see them at the Council, 
perhaps by Gregory of Nyssa, 4 they were not set forth as 
its Creed, and are first called by that name when quoted by 
the Imperial officers at Chalcedon in 431. 5 

The divines of Ephesus showed their sense of the finality 
of the Nicene Creed still more strongly. After reciting it 
; , „ aloud in its original simple form, they decreed, as 

bytheCoun- . ' , . , ; , . , ■ . 

cii of Ephe- if foreseeing the alterations to which the growing 
spirit of controversy might lead, that henceforward 
no one should 'propose, or write, or compose any other 

* Creed than that defined by the Fathers in the city of 

* Nicasa,' under pain of deposition from the clerical office if 

1 Dr. Newman's note on Athanasius's * Niceph. H. E. xii. 3. 

Treatises, i. p. 19. 5 See the case clearly put in TUle* 

3 Ath. Tom. ad Antioch. 3, 4. mont, ix. 494. 
* Epiph. Ancor. 120. 



142 



THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. 



LECT. IV 



they were clergy, and of excommunication if they were lay- 
Broken by men - It was not till the next Council, the Fourth 
of e chX c - il General Council, at Chalcedon, that the original 
don - exclusive supremacy of the old Nicene Creed was 
impaired. Then, for the first time, amidst much remon- 
strance, 1 the additions of Constantinople were formally ac- 
knowledged, and the enlarged Creed, in its present form, was 
received, though not as superseding the original Creed of the 
First Council, and with a protest against any further changes. 
It is said that the ancient Eastern sects, both Monophysite 
and Nestorian, still bear witness to the fact, that no additions 
had up to this time been made. The Creed, as they recite 
it, is that of Nicaea alone. In the West, even as late as 
the seventh century, 2 it was retained in the Church of Spain. 
But the principle was broken through, and the way was 
opened for still further modifications. The Constantinopo- 
litan Creed, as set forth at Chalcedon, gradually rose, from 
its co-ordinate position, into the place and name of the Creed 
of Nicsea. The original Arian controversy was now so far in 
the distance, that the polemical elements were regarded as 
unnecessary. The new form of the Creed not only dropped 
some of the emphatic phrases defining the term ' begotten 
i of the Father,' but also abandoned the anathemas against 
the condemned dogmas. 3 On the other hand, the expres- 
sions which it added concerning the Incarnation and Passion, 
though at the time probably intended only as slight amplifi- 
cations, contain germs which in later ages have fructified into 
vast dogmatic systems. And the enlarged description of the 
attributes of the Spirit gave an opening to the deliberate ad- 
dition of the words 1 and the Son ' to the doctrine of the Pro- 
cession which rent asunder the Churches of East and West. 



1 The remonstrances are given in 
Mansi, vi. 630, 631, 641 ; the adoption of 
the new Creed, vi. 958, vii. 22, 23 ; the 
principle of its adoption, vii. 114, 115. 
The difficulties are well given in Tille- 
montj xiv. 442. 

* Mansi, x. 778. 



3 The only Church in the East, which, 
whilst adopting the Constantinopolitan 
Creed, retains the anathemas of the 
Nicene, is said to be the Armenian. 
Their last appearance in the West is in 
the Creed of Gregory of l ours. (Greg. 
Tur. i. 1.) 



LECT. iv. CHANGES IN THE NICENE CREED. 



143 



In the Western versions of the Creed, besides this one 
important alteration, others appeared of less moment, but 
not to be overlooked ' God of God ' was reinserted from 
the old Nicene Creed. ' By the Holy Ghost of the Virgin 
' Mary ' was another variation. The abstract neutrality of 
the original (to Kvpiov, to ^wottolovv) was transformed into 
* Dominum vivificantem ' in the Latin, and ' the Lord and 
1 Giver of* Life ' in the English version. ' Holy,' as an epithet 
of the Catholic Church, probably from inadvertence, has been 
omitted in the English. 

Such have been the changes of the most unchangeable 
of all the Creeds. So slight a check has even the solemn 
decree of the Council of Ephesus been able to place on the 
growth of controversy, and the modification of the work of 
the Council of Nicaea. That decree has often been quoted 
as a condemnation of the numerous confessions of faith 
which have in later times been introduced : the so-called 
1 Athanasian,' in the seventh century ; the Tridentine, Lu- 
theran, Reformed, and Anglican Articles in the sixteenth. 
So far as these confessions are regarded as terms of com- 
munion, they no doubt (as Burnet urged in the case of the 
Athanasian Creed) 1 run counter to the spirit of the Council 
of Ephesus. But the substitution of the Creed 2 as set forth 
at Chalcedon for that set forth at Nicaea, though a less im- 
portant, is a more direct, as it is a more universal, violation 
of the Ephesian decree. We might, if we chose, vex our- 
selves by the thought that every time we recite the Creed in 
its present altered form we have departed from the intention 
of the Fathers of Nicaea, and incurred deprivation and ex- 
communication at the hands of the Fathers of Ephesus. 
We might insist on returning to the only Catholic form of 
the Creed, such as it was before it was corrupted at Constan- 



' Macaulay's England, iii. 473. 

1 That the Ephesian decree applied 
to the Constantinopolitan (or Chalce- 
donian) additions, was perceived by 
Cardinal Julian at the Council of Fer- 



rara. (Jenkins' Life of Cardinal Julian, 
p. 291.) The contrary has been proved 
since ; witness Mr. Ffoulkes, in his Let- 
ter to Archbishop Manning, on the 
1 Church's Creed, or the Crown's Creed.' 



144 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA. 



lect. nr. 



tinople, Chalcedon, Toledo, and London. But there is a 
more religious, as well as a more rational inference to be 
drawn from this long series of unauthorised innovations. 
Every time that the Creed is recited, with its additions and 
omissions, it conveys to us the wholesome warning, that our 
faith is not of necessity bound up with the literal text of 
Creeds, or with the formal decrees of Councils. It existed 
before the Creed was drawn ur ; it is larger than the letter 
of any Creed could circumscribe. 1 The fact that the whole 
Christian world has altered the Creed of Nicaea, and broken 
the decree of Ephesus, without ceasing to be Catholic or 
Christian, is a decisive proof that common sense, after all, 
is the supreme arbiter and corrective even of (Ecumenical 
Councils. 



1 This is well put in Archbishop (xii.), and Dr. Temple's Essay on 1 The 
Thomson's 'Lincoln's Inn Sermons' Education of he World,' p. 41. 



lect. v. THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 



145 



LECTURE V. 

THE CONCLUSION OF THE COUNCIL. 

Two questions remained for the decision of the Council, 
now nearly forgotten ; but one of them, at the time, occu- 
pying almost an equal share of attention with the theological 
controversy just concluded ; the other, no doubt, to those 
who were specially concerned, as interesting as to us it is 
tedious and trivial. 

I. The first of these, in importance, if not in order of 
discussion, was the question of Easter. It was the most 
The Paschal ancient controversy in the Church. It was the 
Controversy. on \y one w hich had come down from the time 
when the Jewish and Christian communities were indis- 
tinguishable. It was the only one which grew directly out 
of events in the Gospel history. Its very name (the 
' Quartodeciman,' the 'Fourteenth-day,' controversy) was 
derived, not from the Christian or Gentile, but the Jewish, 
calendar. The briefest statement of it will here suffice. 
Was the Christian Passover (for the word was still pre- 
served, and by the introduction of the German word 
' Easter,' we somewhat lose the force of the connection) to 
be celebrated on the same day as the Jewish, the fourteenth 
day of the month Nisan ; or on the following Sunday? 
This was the fundamental question, branching out into 
others as the controversy became entangled with the more 
elaborate institution of the Christian fast of forty days, as 
also with the astronomical difficulties in the way of fixing 
its relations to the vernal equinox. On one side were the 

L 



146 THE COUNCIL OF NICyEA. lect. v. 

old, historical, apostolical traditions ; on the other side, the 
new, Christian, Catholic spirit, striving to part company 
with its ancient Jewish birthplace. The Eastern Church, 
at least in part, as was natural, took the former, the Western 
the latter, view. At the time when the Council was con- 
vened at Nicaea, the Judaic time was kept by the Churches 
of Syria, Mesopotamia, Cilicia, and Proconsular Asia ; the 
Christian time by the Churches of the West, headed by 
Rome, and also, as it would seem, the Eastern Churches of 
Egypt, Greece, Palestine, and Pontus. It was a diversity 
of practice which probably shocked the Emperor's desire 
for uniformity almost as much as the diversity of doctrine. 
The Church appeared (this was the expression of the time) 

* to go halting on one leg.' 1 ' The sight of some Churches 
' fasting on the same day when others were rejoicing, and 

* of two Passovers in one year, was against the very idea of 
' Christian unity.' ' The celebration of it on the same day 
' as was kept by the wicked race that put the Saviour to 
{ death was an impious absurdity.' The first of these reasons 
determined that uniformity was to be enforced. The 
second determined that the older, or Jewish, practice must 
give way to the Christian innovation. 

1. We know nothing of the details of the debate. Pro- 
bably the combined influence of the Churches of Rome 
and of Egypt, of Hosius and of Eusebius, backed by the 
authority of the Emperor, was too great for resistance. It 
was sometimes said afterwards that the Council had made 
the selection of the day a matter of principle. But this 
was not the case. The only principle which had really 
guided them was, that, in a matter of indifference, the 
minority must give way to the majority. 2 In one point the 
form of the Decree on Easter agreed with that of the 
Creed ; no date was affixed. In another point it 

The Decree. _ . 

~ differed. Whereas the Creed was prefaced with 



1 Ath. ad Afros, c. 5 : ixtaKeve. 

" Soc. v. 22 (64) ; an admirable and instructive passage. 



lect. v. THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 



147 



the words, 4 So believes the Catholic Church/ — the Decree 
was prefaced with the words, which are also found in Con- 
stantine's letter, 1 £ It has been determined by common 
consent' (cSo^c kolvy} yvwfirj), apparently to show that this 
was a matter of mere outward arrangement. And it was 
probably couched in this form in order \o avoid the 
necessity of imposing penalties on those who were at first 
reluctant to give up their ancient customs. 2 

The Decree took more immediate and undisputed 
effect than the Creed. Arianism, as we have seen, lingered 
long, both in the Empire and in the surrounding nations. 
But the observance of Easter, from that time, was reduced 
to almost complete uniformity. Cilicia had already given 
way before the Decree was issued. Mesopotamia and 
Syria accepted the Decree at a solemn Council held at 
Antioch within twenty years. 3 

Three small sects, 4 indeed, in each of those provinces, 
still maintained their protest against the innovation of the 
Nicene Council as late as the fifth century, almost after the 
fashion ot the modern Dissenters of Russia ; abjuring the 
slightest intercourse with the established Churches which 
had made the change, and ascribing the adoption of the 
Nicene Decree to the influence of the Emperor Constantine, 
fixing the day to suit the Emperor's birthday, much as the 
corresponding communities in Russia ascribe the alterations 5 
against which they protest, to the influence of Peter. But 
these were isolated exceptions. Through the rest of the 
Church the Jewish observance died out. Whatever subse- 
quent troubles arose concerning the observance of Easter 
had no connection with this original diversity ; and the 
Nicene Council may fairly claim the credit of having ex- 
tinguished at least one bitter controversy, which had once 

1 Eus. V.C iii. 18. (Soc. v. 21), the Audians in Mesopotamia 

a See Ideier, Technische Chrono- (Epiph. Hser. 70), the remaining Quarto- 



logie, ii. 204. 

* Tillemont, vi. 666. 
4 The Novatians of Constantinople 



decimans in Asia Minor (ib. 50). See 
Hefele, i. 320, 321. 
* See Lecture XII. 



L 2 



148 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^A. 



LECT. V. 



seemed interminable, and of laying down at least one rule, 
which is still observed in every Church, East and West, 
Protestant and Catholic. 

2. Even in details the mode of observance which still 
prevails was then first prescribed. Besides the original 
and more important question, whether the Paschal Feast 
should be observed on the Jewish or the Christian day, 
had arisen another question, occasioned by the difficulty of 
rightly adjusting the cycle of the lunar year ; from which it 
resulted that, even amongst those who followed the more 
general Christian practice, Easter was observed sometimes 
twice or three times, sometimes not at all. It was now 
determined, once for all, that the Sunday should be kept 
which fell most nearly after the full moon of the vernal 
equinox. For the facilitation of this observance two 
measures were taken ; one of which is remarkable as still 
guiding the calculations of Christendom, the other as 
having given rise to an important custom long since 
obsolete. 

What English child has not at odd moments turned 
over the leaves of his Prayer-book to wonder at the table of 
The table Golden Number, and the directions for finding 
for discover- Easter-day ? That table first originated in the 
ing as er. Q ounc ji_ c j iam ^ er Q f Ni caea ; perhaps in the desire 

of the Emperor Constantine to soothe the wounded feelings 
of his favourite counsellor. When the task of adapting the 
cycle of the lunar year to the Paschal question was pro- 
posed, the Council would naturally turn to the most learned 
of its members to accomplish the work. This was un- 
questionably Eusebius of Caesarea. 1 He had paid special 
attention to chronology ; and his general knowledge was 
such as, in the eyes of the historian Socrates, of itself to 
redeem the assembly from the charge of illiterate ignorance. 2 
He had just been sorely tried by the insertion of the un- 
welcome Homoousion into the Creed which he had pro- 

1 Tillemont, vi. 668. * See Lecture II. 



lect. v. THE PASCHAL CONTROVERSY. 



149 



posed to the Council ; he was probably suspected of having 
given but divided assent to the Creed as it now stood. It 
is creditable to the justice and the wisdom of the Council, 
that they should not have allowed their recent disputes and 
wide theological differences to stand in the way of intrusting 
this delicate task, as they must have thought it, to the man 
who on general grounds was most fitted to undertake it. 

He devoted himself to the work, and in the course of it 
composed an elaborate treatise on the Paschal Feast, which 
he presented to his Imperial master, who gratefully ac- 
knowledged it as a gigantic, almost inconceivable, enter- 
prise ; 1 and gave orders that, if possible, it should be 
translated into Latin, for the use of the Western Church. 

3. Whilst this work was preparing, and also for the sake 
of those whose arithmetical powers were unequal to the 
_ , calculation which it might involve, the Council 

The Festal 0 , 1 

Letters of looked to another quarter for immediate and 
exan na. constant j^p. if Eusebius of Cassarea was the 
most learned individual at hand, the most learned body 
represented at Nicsea was the Church of Alexandria. It is 
interesting to see how the ancient wisdom of Egypt still 
maintained its fame even in Christian theology. By a 
direct succession, the Bishops of Alexandria had inherited 
the traditions of astronomical science, that first appear in 
the fourteenth century before the Christian era, on the 
painted ceilings of the temples of Thebes. On them, 
therefore, was imposed the duty 2 of determining the exact 
day for the celebration of each successive Easter ; and of 
announcing it for each following year, by special messen- 
gers sent immediately after the feast of Epiphany, to all the 
towns and monasteries within their own jurisdiction, as well 
as to the Western Church through the Bishop of Rome, and 
to the Syrian Church through the Bishop of Antioch. 

So absolute was their authority in this matter, that even 



1 Eus. V.C. iv. 34, 35. 

" It had already existed as a custom. See Neale's Alexandrian Church, i. 68. 



150 



THE COUNCIL OF NIC^EA. 



LECT. V. 



though they were certainly proved to have made erroneous 
calculations and fixed the festival wrongly, the Roman 
Bishop had no redress, except by appealing to the Em- 
peror, and entreating him to admonish the Bishop of 
Alexandria to use more caution, and so to preserve the 
whole Christian Church from falling into error. The first 
result of this arrangement is known to us in the ' Festal ' or 
* Paschal ' Letters of Athanasius, who succeeded to the see 
of Alexandria the year after the decision of the Council. 
From that year for a period of thirty years, these letters 
(preserved to our day by the most romantic series 1 of 
incidents in the history of ancient documents) exhibit to us 
the activity with which, amidst all his occupations, Athana- 
sius carried out the order which he had heard, as a deacon, 
enjoined by the Council on his aged master Alexander. 

The Coptic Church still looks back with pride to the 
age when its jurisdiction was thus acknowledged by all 
Christian sees. Gradually the high position of the most 
learned of Churches has drifted to other regions. The 
Bishops of Rome, who once received from the Popes of 
Alexandria decrees unalterable even by the Roman see, in 
their turn became the depositaries of science, and in their 
turn accordingly reformed the calendar of the Christian 
world, and imposed it, gradually, but successfully, on the 
reluctant Churches, even of the Protestant confessions. 
And now the wave of learning in its onward movement has 
left Rome high and dry, as it had left Alexandria before ; 
and, if similar problems of mixed philosophy and religion 
have again to be imposed on the world by the most learned 
of its representatives, those representatives will now cer- 
tainly not be found either in Italy or in Egypt. 2 



4 Dr. Cureton's Preface to 'The 
Festal Letters of Athanasius/ 

2 There is one point in regard to the 
settlement of the Paschal question, 
which seems entirely to have escaped 
the Nicene Fathers, but which probably, 
owing to their want of foresight, will, 



with each succeeding century, widen the 
divergence between civil and ecclesias- 
tical usages. How many collisions and 
complications might have been avoided, 
had Easter been then, once for all, made 
a fixed, instead of a movable, festival. 



lect. v. THE MELITIAN SCHISM. 1 5 1 

II. Another question which the Council had to settle 
was that of the Melitian 1 schism. ' I have not leisure,' says 
The Meii- Gibbon, ' to pursue the obscure controversy which 
tian Schism. < seems to have been misrepresented by the partiality 
* of Athanasius, and the ignorance of Epiphanius.' Every- 
one who has looked into the matter will feel the force of 
this remark. But, as there must have been a small knot of 
persons in the Council who were vehemently agitated by 
the question, we must briefly enter into its merits. 2 It 
began in one of those numerous difficulties belonging to a 
generation which at the time of the Council was passing 
away. We often hear it said that the period of persecution 
was a period of purity in the Church. This, unfortunately, 
must be taken with considerable reservation. Whilst one 
class of evils was repressed, another class was provoked and 
aggravated. In the Christian world of the third century, a 
controversy arose out of the persecutions, which tended to 
embitter every relation of life, namely, the mode of treating 
those who, in a moment of weakness, had abjured or com- 
promised their faith. No weapon of polemics, even in the 
Nicene Council itself, was so pointed as the charge or 
suspicion of having 'lapsed.' No allies were so important, 
even in the support of abstract theological or chronological 
speculations, as those who had ' confessed 5 and suffered for 
the faith. The Novatian, the Donatist, and finally the 
Melitian schisms were so many phases of this excited feel- 
ing. Melitius was Bishop of Lycopolis (Osioot), the present 
capital of Upper Egypt. He had taken the severer view of 
the cases of the lapsed, whilst his episcopal brother of 
Alexandria, Peter, had leaned to the milder side. The 
quarrel had broken out in prison. Peter, stretching out his 
episcopal mantle like a sail, had caused his deacon to 
proclaim, ' Those who are for me, let them come to me ; 



1 MeAt-rtos is the name in Athanasius, which this controversy rests are well set 
MeAij-rio? in Epiphanius. forth by Hefele, i. 337, 338. 

a The three classes of documents on 



152 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



LECT. V. 



those who are for Melitius, to Melitius.' Each set up his 
own Church and succession of Bishops. Peter's com- 
munion in Alexandria retained the title of the Church 
' Catholic' 1 Melitius's, in distinction, was styled the 
' Church of the Martyrs.' His orthodoxy was undoubted, 
and he had the credit of having first called attention to the 
heresy of Arius. He was probably one of those men who 
spend their lives in picking holes in the conduct or opinions 
of their neighbours, and who have so keen a scent for the 
weaknesses and the errors of others, that they never attend 
to their own. He became, with his following of independent 
Bishops, the head of a Nonjuring community, a thorn in 
the side of the Bishops of Alexandria hardly less vexatious 
than Arius ; and as years rolled on, and as increasing 
troubles made strange bedfellows, the Melitian schismatics 
and the Arian heretics, 2 once deadly enemies, became 
sworn allies against their common enemy Athanasius. 

This, however, was still far in the distance. The Council 
had to decide only on the facts of the case as they then 
were. They were gifted neither with the divine insight into 
coming events, which could have enabled them to anticipate 
the future, nor with the wicked desire to push to their 
possible extremities all the tendencies of an innocent sect. 
They acted according to what at the time appeared the 
dictates of charity and prudence, and if, during the next 
thirty years, their judgment might seem to have been a 
mistake, by the end of the next century the total extinction 
of the sect ratified its real and permanent wisdom. Melitius 
was to retain his title and rank in his own city, but not' to 
prdain. Those ordained by him were to resume their 
functions after a second ordination, and to take their places 
below those ordained by the Bishop of Alexandria. Any 



? The word was here probably used 
|rt its more restricted sense of f paro- 
chial,' ! established,' Church. Pee Pear- 
son on the Creed (note op Art. 9). 



2 It is said, however, that before this 
(Epiph. Hser. 60) Theonas had been ap- 
pointed by Melitius. 



LECT. V. 



THE MELITIAN SCHISM. 



153 



future ordinations were to be made by the consent of the 
same authority. 1 

Melitius and his party belong to that prying, meddlesome, 
intolerant class, who least of all men have a right to claim 
toleration at the hands of their opponents or at the hands of 
posterity. Yet even characters such as these must receive 
the just allowance which they deny to others ; and we may 
well admire the liberal treatment which they received from 
the Council of Nicaea. By what means it was brought about 
we know not. But we cannot err in supposing that it was 
agreeable to the general temper of Constantine ; and we may 
also conjecture that it was accelerated by the general respect 
for the venerable confessor Paphnutius, himself an adherent 
of the Melitian party. 

One person present must have been deeply mortified by 
this result. Athanasius, who up to this point had carried all 
before him, now saw a blow aimed at the supremacy of the 
see of Alexandria, which, both as the archdeacon of its 
Bishop, and the champion of its faith, he had so strenuously 
defended. Afterwards, if not at the time, he revenged him- 
self by the taunt, 2 which we now know to be the reverse of 
the truth, that Melitius had compromised himself by com- 
pliance with heathen sacrifices : ' O that Melitius had never 
'been received by the Church ! By some means or other,' 
he says, with an unmistakable bitterness, 3 ' the Melitians 
'were received, but the reason I need not tell.' He was 
clearly in a minority in the Council. However much in his 
later life we may rejoice that Athanasius stood firm against 
the world, we may fairly rejoice that on this occasion 
Athanasius stood alone against the Church, and that the 
Church stood and prevailed against Athanasius. 

III. The main grievances of the Christian world, all more 
or less connected with the Church of Egypt, had been reme- 
died. There still remained the correction of abuses such as 
have ever since occupied, in name at least, the chief atten- 

1 Soc. i. 9. a See Hefele, i. 331. 3 Athan. Apol. c. Ariao. 58, 71. 



154 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



LECT. V, 



tion of every General Council. Little as is the notice that 
these regulations attract, compared with the special contro- 
versies which called the Council together, they have a peculiar 
interest of their own. They give us an insight into the 
customs and morals of the age; and the extent to which 
they are observed or neglected now, gives us a measure of 
the nearness or of the distance of our relations to the 
Council. 

The Apocryphal Canons of Nicasa fill forty books. 
They are translated into Arabic, and are received by the 
TheApo Eastern Church as binding with the validity of 
cryphai Imperial laws. They are, in fact, a collection of 
all the customs and canons of the Oriental Church 
ascribed to the Nicene Council, as all good English customs 
to Alfred. 1 But the authentic Canons are only twenty in 
number, filling only three or four pages. There are, indeed, 
a few points mentioned in connection with the Council which 
are not contained in these Canons. Four such usages are 
thus cited by the writers of the next two generations, namely : 
the injunction to offer the Eucharist fasting ; the permission 
of appeal from episcopal jurisdiction to the higher 'apostoli- 
cal ' sees ; the revision of the decrees of former Councils by 
those that followed ; the prohibition of second marriage to 
the clergy, and of two bishops in the same see. 2 

According to an old tradition, the Canon of Scripture 
was now fixed. The Canonical and the Apocryphal books 
_ . . , were placed together near the Holy Table, with a 

Decision of r & . J ' 

the Canon prayer that the canonical might be found above, 
of Scripture. ^ e others below. 3 This was no doubt a mere 
popular representation. It is a mark of the wisdom of the 
Nicene, and indeed of all the early Councils, that they never 
ventured to define the limits of the sacred books. But that 
some discussion on the subject took place, may be inferred 



1 Hefele, i. 344-350. 

a See the question discussed, Mansi, ii. 734 ; Broglie, ii. 428. 
* Mansi, ii. 749. 



LECT. V. 



THE CANONS. 



155 



from Jerome's belief 1 that the Book of Judith was there and 
then recognised as canonical. Such a recognition, or even 
The Book the belief in such a recognition, probably had great 
of Judith, weight in determining for many centuries the re- 
ception of that most doubtful of all the Apocryphal writings. 
Nor has its reception been barren of results. It has answered 
the purpose of opening the minds of thoughtful theologians 
in the Church of Rome to the shades and degrees of canoni- 
city and inspiration. In France, its perusal as a sacred book 
nerved the hand of Charlotte Corday to the assassination of 
Marat. 

From these doubtful points we proceed to the considera- 
tion of the twenty Canons, so far as they bear on the history 
of the Council. 

They may be divided, for convenience, into four 
groups : — 

1. Those which relate to clerical jurisdiction 

Canons on . J 

Clerical bring out, more forcibly perhaps than any others, 

Jurisdiction. , . J r \ . J . 

the inequality of observance which those ancient 
decrees have received. They are the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 15th, 
1 6th, and 18th. 

The fifth Canon breathes an air of ante-Nicene simplicity. 
It is intended to act as a check on the tyranny of individual 
The fifth Bishops, to guard against the unjust exclusion of 
PrScia?" anyone from the Church through the party spirit 
Councils. ((fnXovcLKta), or the narrow-mindedness (fUKpoifruxta), 
or the personal dislike (d^Sta), of the Bishop of any particular 
diocese. To remedy this, all questions of excommunication 
are to be discussed in Provincial Councils to be held twice 
a year, once in the autumn, once before Easter, in order 
that the offerings at the Easter communion might be made 
with good consciences and good will towards each other. 
The whole of this machinery has necessarily passed away. 2 



1 Epist. iii. called, was made in the Council of Basle. 

2 An attempt to revive * this pearl of See the I ife of Cardinal Julian, by the 
reformatory decrees,' as it has been Rev. R. Jenkins, p. 227. 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



LECT. V. 



But the Decree renders a striking testimony to the care with 
which the rights of individuals were guarded, and to the 
belief in the ancient Evangelical doctrine of forbearance and 
forgiveness. 

The fourth Canon is still observed through the greater 
part of Christendom. It enjoined that, at the consecration 
m r , (' ordination,' as it was then termed) of a Bishop, 

The fourth v ' ' r ' 

Canon. On no less than three Bishops should be concerned, as 
tion of ina " 'representing the absent Bishops of the province, 
Bishops. jjjjghj 5 e detained by pressing business or the 

length of the journey. On the observance of this Canon in 
the consecration of Archbishop Parker of Canterbury, on 
its neglect in the consecration of Archbishop Petersen of 
Upsala, depends the different degree of validity and regula- 
rity which is attached by scrupulous churchmen to the orders 
of the Church of England and of the Church of Sweden. 

The 6th, 7th, 15th, and 18th Canons, could we but look 
under their surface, each probably represents a fierce debate, 
in which we almost seem to see the very combatants engaged. 
The two highest dignitaries in the Council were Alexander 
of Alexandria, and Eustathius of Antioch. The jurisdiction 
of the former had been assailed, as we have seen, by Melitius. 
It was this, probably, which led to the sixth Canon, con firm- 
ing to him and to his brother Metropolitans what- 

The sixth ° . ... . . 1 

Canon. On ever ancient privileges they had possessed over the 
leges of Ale- Bishops in their respective provinces. In this 
tropoiitans. Canon we see tne fi rst germ 0 f tne yet undevel- 
oped Patriarchates of the East ; and in the one precedent 
selected for such a jurisdiction, we see the organisation 
already formed of what was to become the Patriarchate of 
the West. 'This, 5 the Council says, 'is to be laid down 
as is the custom in the parallel case of the Bishop of 
Rome. 1 

1 Rufinus (i. 6.) adds : ' ut vel ille the Italian prefecture, specially under 
.#>ypti, vel hie suburbicariarum eccle- the vicariate of Rome, viz. Southern 
sianim solicitudinem gerat.' By ' subur- Italy and the islands. Greenwood, I. 
bicariarum' were meant the churches of iS8. 



lect, v. CANONS ON CLERICAL JURISDICTION. I $7 



In later times, and especially at the Council of Chalcedon, 
this decree was made the ground of exalting the primacy of 
the Roman see above that of Constantinople, which of course 
had not been mentioned at Nicsea. But it is a remarkable 
instance of the cautious, deliberate, perhaps compromising, 
spirit of the Nicene Council that the settlement of the juris- 
diction refers to no grounds, historical or doctrinal, for its 
decision, but simply appeals to established usages in words 
which have since become almost proverbial, ' Let ancient 
' customs prevail,' (to, a/r^aia Wt\ /cpa/reiVa)). 

This confirmation, of long prestige, limited as it was, 
naturally led to a claim on the part of another see, which 
was itself soon to aspire to an equality with the others, but 
now only sought a humble recognition of its former grandeur. 
, „ The seventh Canon ran thus, and it discloses a 

Seventh Ca- ' . 

non, Reia- slight passage at arms between Eusebius of Csesarea 
salem and and Macarius of ^Elia Capitolina, not yet 'Jeru- 
Caesarea. sa ] em . ' — <As custom and ancient tradition have 
* obtained that the bishop of ^Elia should be honoured, let 
'him bear his proper honour,' — so far Macarius gained his 
point, — but (and here we cannot mistake the intervention of 
his superior, the Metropolitan of Csesarea,) 4 always saving 
the rights of the Metropolitan.' So closely was the eccle- 
siastical organisation framed on the arrangements of the 
Empire, that even the parent Church of Christendom could 
not take precedence, even in the Holy Land, of the merely 
secular seat of the Roman government. It was the same 
spirit which guided William the Conqueror in his selection 
of the Norman fortresses, rather than the Saxon sanctuaries, 
as the sees of the bishoprics of England. But in this case 
we catch the relation of the sees of Caesarea and Jerusalem 
on the very edge of their turn. Before another ten years, 
^Elia Capitolina had not only become Jerusalem, but the 
Holy Sepulchre had been discovered, and Macarius was 
more than compensated for any concessions he may have 
made to Eusebius at Nicaea ; and by the next century his 



i 5 8 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



LECT. V. 



see had become a patriarchate, while Csesarea remained an 
inferior bishopric. 

The fifteenth Canon struck at a custom which prevailed, 
as it would seem, largely even at that early time, and which, 
Fifteenth in spite of this Canon, was contiaued, and probably 
SbSon will continue as long as the Church itself. It pro- 
Transiauon. hibits absolutely the translation of any Bishop, 
Presbyter, or Deacon, from one city to another. There 
were at least two high personages in the Council, who must 
have winced under this decree, the orthodox Eustathius of 
xAntioch 1 and the heterodox Eusebius of Nicomedia. But 
they would have had their revenge if they could have seen 
how soon the decree would have spent its force. Eusebius 
himself, who had subscribed this very decree, was translated 
a few years afterwards from Nicomedia to Constantinople, 2 
and it was thought so heroic a virtue in Eusebius of Csesarea 
to have declined a translation to the see of Antioch, that 
Constantine declared him in consequence fit to be a Bishop, 
not of a single city, but of the whole world. 3 By the close 
of the century it was set aside as if it had never existed, and 
there is probably no Church in Europe in which the con- 
venience or the ambition of men has not proved too strong 
for its adoption. If the translation of Bishops has now be- 
come the exception, yet the translation, the promotion, of 
Presbyters and Deacons from place to place, has been so 
common as to escape all notice. 

The eighteenth Canon, on the other hand, touches an 
evil which has vanished and hardly left a trace behind. 
Eio-hteenth Later ages have been accustomed to the domination 
Canon. 0 f p 0 p eSj Bishops, Presbyters. But the Church of 
the Nicene age was vexed with the peculiar presumption 
of the order of Deacons. Being usually the confidential 
attendants of the Bishops, they were in the habit of taking 
their place among the Presbyters, and of receiving the 



: Eustathius had been translated from Berrhoea, and Eusebius from Berytus. Sec 
Hefele, i. 404. ■ Theod. i. 19. * Soz. U. zg. 



lect. v. CANONS ON CLERICAL JURISDICTION. 1 59 



Eucharist even before the Bishops themselves. This the 
Restraint Council of Nicaea strongly reproves, and glances 
of the power at certain places and cities where the reproof was 
0 specially needed. One young Deacon, we know, 

there was present in the Council, whose prominent activity 
on this occasion provoked the envy of many of his superiors. 
B it it is probable that the local allusion specially was not to 
Alexandria, but Rome. The Bishop Sylvester, as we have 
seen, was absent. But his two Presbyters, Victor and Vin- 
centius, were present. We learn from Jerome how the Roman 
Deacons took especial advantage of their master's dignity to 
lord it over the Roman Presbyters, and it is not too much to 
suppose that the two aggrieved Presbyters took the oppor- 
tunity of urging what in the Bishop's presence would have 
been unnecessary or inexpedient. 

2. One regulation alone, the twentieth Canon, related to 
worship : that which enjoins that on every Sunday, and in 

. , daily worship between Easter and Pentecost, the 

Twentieth J . 1 

Canon. Pro- devotions of the people shall be performed stand- 
kneeliog on ing. Kneeling is forbidden. The almost universal 
Sundays. violation of this Canon in Western Churches, at 
the present day, illustrates our remoteness from the time and 
country of the Nicene Fathers. To pray standing was, in 
public worship, believed to have been an apostolical usage. 
It is still the universal practice in the Eastern Church, not 
only on Sundays, but week-days. But in the West kneeling 
has gradually taken its place ; and the Presbyterians of Scot- 
land, and at times the Lutherans of Germany, are probably 
the only Occidental Christians who now observe the one 
only rubric 1 laid down for Christian worship by the First 
CEcumenical Council. 

3. The Canons which relate to the manners and morals 
of the clergy naturally carry us back to evils long extinct. 
But they are all distinguished by a remarkable prudence and 
moderation; namely, the ist, 2nd, 3rd, and 17th. 

1 Rufinus (i. 6) omits it. 



THE COUNCIL OF NIGdEA. 



LECT. V. 



The i st is aimed against acts 1 of excessive asceticism, 
which had led to scandalous consequences. The 2nd re- 
strains the rapid transition of converts from heathenism to 
baptism, and from baptism to ordination. The 17th, with 
the strong feeling of those times against usury, forbids the 
The third c ^ er gy to make money by exorbitant interest. The 
Canon, pro- 3rd Canon guarded against the scandals which 

hibiting in- ... - , . . _ 

tercourse might arise from the ancient practice of the intimate 
HgiouT companionship of the clergy with religious ladies. 2 
women. <-^ 0 j^^op^ n o Presbyter, no Deacon, no one 
* holding any clerical office, is to have with him a woman of 
'this kind, unless it be his mother, sister, or aunt, or such 
'persons as are entirely beyond suspicion. 7 But connected 
with this decree was an abortive attempt, which discloses 
to us one of the most interesting scenes of the Council. A 
proposition was made, enjoining that all married clergy 
(according to one report, including even sub-deacons) were 
to separate from their wives. It was in substance the same 
measure that was afterwards proposed and carried in the 
Spanish Council of Illiberis, and it is therefore not impro- 
bable that it was brought forward on this occasion by the 
great Hosius. It was also, we are told, supported by Eusta- 
thius of Antioch. 3 But every distinguished member of the 
Council in turn seems to have met with a rebuff The 
Protest 6f opposition came from a most unexpected quarter. 
agTmst'cieri- * r o m amongst the Egyptian Bishops stepped out 
cai celibacy. i nto m idst, looking out of his one remaining 

eye, and halting on his paralysed leg, the old hermit-confessor, 
Paphnutius or Paphnute. With a roar of indignation rather 
than with a speech, 4 he broke into the debate : — ' Lay not 
' this heavy yoke on the clergy. " Marriage is honourable in 
' "all, and the bed undented." By exaggerated strictness 
' you will do the Church more harm than good. All cannot 

1 See Bingham, xiii. 8 ; Beveridge, Synod, ad 1. note 44 ; Athan. Tracts, ed. 
Newman, ii. 250-252. 

* <rvvei<TaKTai, also called ayanrfTaC. See Bingham, vi. 2, 13. 

* Synod. Gangr. 4. (Hefele, i. 417.) * Soc. i. 11 : e0da /xaxpa. 



lect V. CANONS ON CLERICAL MANNERS. l6l 



4 bear such an ascetic rule. The wives themselves will suffer 
£ from it. Marriage itself is continence. It is enough for a 
* man to be kept from marriage after he has been ordained, 
' according to the ancient 1 custom ; but do not separate him 
' from the wife whom once for all he married when he was 
' still a layman.' His speech produced a profound sensation. 2 
His own austere life of unblemished celibacy gave force to 
every word that he uttered ; he showed that rare excellence 
of appreciating difficulties which he himself did not feel, and 
of honouring a state of life which was not his own. He has 
been rewarded by the gratitude of the whole Eastern Church, 
which still, according to the rule which he proposed, allows 
and now almost enjoins marriage on all its clergy before 
ordination, without permitting it afterwards. 3 The Latin 
Church has rushed into the opposite extreme ; but, owing 
to Paphnute's victory, must have been conscious from the 
first that it was acting in defiance of the well-known inten- 
tion of the Fathers of Nicsea. The story has been denied, 
and explained away. Even the candid French layman who 
has last written the account of the Council throws it into an 
appendix. 4 As early as the fifth century it is omitted in the 
one Latin historian of these events. But its authenticity is 
beyond dispute; 5 and even in the West the wise Egyptian 
hermit has not been forgotten. An aged Cardinal, at the 
Council of Basle 6 (though, unfortunately, with less success 
than Paphnutius), expressed himself so nearly in the same way 
that we can hardly help supposing a reminiscence of this 
incident. Yet later, in the reign of Mary, when Hooper 
Bishop of Gloucester, was tried before the Bishops of London, 
Winchester, Durham, Llandaff, and Chichester, and the 

1 Apost. Const, vi. 17. long after the Council. Eutych. Ann. 

2 James of Nisibis (if his Sermons 450. 

are genuine) took the same view, Serm. * Broglie, ii. 430. 

xviii. s. 9, 383. (Routh, Opusc. i. 403.) 4 For the arguments against the 

3 It was an Egyptian tradition that genuineness of the story, and a candid 
the decree was carried so far as related and complete refutation of them, see 
to Bishops, the separation having been Hefele, i. 417. 

previously enforced in regard to Patri- * Milman's Latin Christianity, vi. 

archs ; who, however, did not exist till 260. 



1 62 THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. lect. v. 

question of the marriage of priests was discussed, ' My Lord 
1 Chancellor and many with him cried out that Master 
'Hooper had never read the Councils. "Yes, my Lord," 
' quoth Hooper, " and my Lord of Chichester, to-day, know- 
' " eth that the great Council of Nice, by the means of one 
' " Paphnutius, decreed that no minister should be separated 
' "from his wife." But such clamour and cries were used, 
' that the Council of Nice was not seen.' 1 

4. The remaining decrees for the most part sprang from 
the same agitations as those which had produced the Me- 
Cases of litian schism. They were the settlements of cases 
conscience. 0 f conscience which arose in dealing with those 
who had given way in the recent persecutions. They remind 
us that we are still on the border land between the perse- 
cuted and the established age of the Church. They steer 
for the most part the same middle course, as in the case of 
the Melitians. On the one hand, the offenders are rigidly 
excluded from the clerical office, yet gently admitted to 
communion. On the other hand, the austere Puritan or 
Novatian sectaries, who, like the Melitians, had separated 
from the Church rather than communicate with their fallen 
brethren, are allowed to re-enter the Church with re-ordina- 
tion, or even to retain their orders in remote cities and 
villages. 

In this decree we can dimly discern two characters of the 
Acesius Council on opposite sides. One is Acesius, 2 who 
was then a Bishop of the Novatians, and who 
would doubtless defend the interests of his sect. The other is 
Hypatius Hypatius of Gangra. He was probably a vehement 
of Gangra. 0 pp 0ne nt of the Novatians ; for, many years after- 
wards, he was attacked by a gang of Novatian ruffians, in a 
pass near Gangra, and pelted and stoned to death. 3 The 
incident is curious, as showing the savage character of the 
sect But, on this occasion, the modified reception of the 



1 Foxe (Wordsworth, Eccl. Biog. ii. 452). 

■ See Lecture III. * Menolog. March 31. 



LECT. V. 



FINAL SUBSCRIPTION. 



163 



Novatians by the Council may be considered as its final act 
of toleration. As every rule admits of an excep- 

Amnesty. . , 

tion, so even the general amnesty of the Council 
(in the 19th Canon) excepted from the general favour the 
small sect of the disciples of Paul of Samosata. ' Synodus 
4 Nicaena,' says Jerome, in his argument against the Luci- 
ferians, 1 'omnes haereticos suscepit praeter Pauli Samosateni 
' discipulos.' 

The Council had now completed its labours. The settle- 
ment of the Arian and the Paschal controversies was era- 
. , , bodied in a letter of the Emperor to the Churches 

Official let- r 

ters and final generally. The settlement of the Mehtian con- 
su scnp ion. trQverS y was ex p ressec i m a letter of the Council 

to the Church of Egypt The Creed and the twenty Canons 
were written in a volume, and again subscribed by all the 
Bishops. Some singular legends adorn this stage of the 
Legend of proceedings. It was believed in later times 2 that 
a^Mysi 115 two of " ^ e 3 T ^ Bishops, Chrysanthus and Myso- 
nius. n i US) wno had entirely concurred in the views of the 
Council, had died before the close of its sessions, and been 
buried in the cemetery of Nicaea. When the day for the final 
subscription arrived, the Bishops took the volume to the 
grave of the two dead men, addressed them, as Mussulmans 
still address their dead saints, and solemnly conjured them, 
that, if now in the clearness of the Divine Presence they still 
approved, they would come and sign with their brethren the 
decrees of the Faith. They then sealed the volume, and laid 
it on the tomb, leaving blank spaces for the signatures, 
watched in prayer all night, and returned in the morning, 
when, on breaking the seal, they found the two subscrip- 
tions, ' We, Chrysanthus and Mysonius, fully concurring with 

* the first Holy and CEcumenical Synod, although removed 

* from earth, have signed the volume with our own hands.' 
A bolder attempt to give a supernatural sanction to the de- 
crees was retained in another story, 3 preserved in the 

1 c. 26. 2 Niceph. H. E. viii. 23. ■ Spicil. Solesnu i. 523. 

M 2 



THE COUNCIL OF NICiEA. 



LECT. V. 



Alexandrian Church, as derived from the courtiers of the 
Palace. 'When the Bishops took their places on their 
Legend of £ thrones, they were 318 ; when they rose up to be 
anc? ofThe ' called o ver, it appeared that they were 3 1 9 ; so that 
Holy Spirit. < faey never could make the number come right, and 
' whenever they approached the last of the series, he im- 
' mediately turned into the likeness of his next neighbour.' 
This truly Oriental legend expresses, in a daring figure, what 
was undoubtedly the belief of the next generation of the 
Church, that the Holy Spirit had been present to guide their 
deliberations aright. 

We return to the actual history. The Emperor had now 
accomplished his wish. The three controversies had been 
extinguished. The Christian world, as he hoped, had been 
reduced to peace and uniformity. The twentieth anniver- 
sary of his accession was come round. The 25th of July, 
celebrated throughout the Empire with games and festivities, 
was appointed by him for a solemn banquet to the assembled 
Bishops. Not one was missing. The sight exceeded all 
expectation. The Imperial guards, who had not entered the 
chamber where the Council had been assembled, were now 
drawn up round the vestibule of the Palace with their swords 
drawn. The Bishops, many of whom had only seen the 
bare steel of the Roman swords in the hands of their exe- 
cutioners and torturers, might well have started at the 
sight. Eusebius thinks it necessary to tell us that they 
passed through the midst of them without any signs of fear, 
and reached the room prepared for their reception, appa- 
rently the same as that in which they had met for debate. 
Instead of the seats and benches, couches or chairs or mat- 
tings 1 were placed along each side ; and in the midst was a 
table for the Emperor, with a favoured few. ' It might have 
' seemed,' says Eusebius, who no doubt was one of these, 
'the likeness of the kingdom of Christ — the fancy of a 
• dream, rather than a waking reality.' The Emperor him- 

' Theod. i. 10. 



LECT. V. 



JAMES OF NISIBIS. 



I6 5 



self presided, and, as the feast went on, called to him one 
Bishop after another, and loaded each with gifts, in propor- 
tion to his deserts. Three are specially named, as marked 
„ , out for peculiar honour. Tames of Nisibis (so ran 

Commenda- 1 . 

tionof James the Eastern tale 1 ) saw angels standing round the 
Emperor, and underneath his purple 2 robe dis- 
covered a sackcloth garment. Constantine, in return, saw 
angels ministering to James, placed his seat above the other 
Bishops, and said : ' There are three pillars of the world, 
' Antony in Egypt, Nicolas of Myra, James in Assyria.' The 
two other incidents are as certainly historical as this is 
Honour of legendary. Paphnutius was lodged in the Palace. 
Paphnutius. The Emperor had often sent for him to hear his 
stories of the persecution ; and now it was remarked how 
he threw his arms round the old man, and put his lips to 
his eyeless socket, as if to suck out with his reverential kiss 
the blessing which, as it were, lurked in the sacred cavity, 3 
and stroke down with his Imperial touch 4 the frightful wound; 
how he pressed his legs and arms and royal purple to the 
paralysed limbs, and put his own eyeball into the socket 
Acesius, the Acesius, the Novatian, too, had come at Con- 
Novatian. stantine's special request ; in the hope, no doubt, 
that the genial atmosphere of the Council would soften his 
prejudices against the Established Church of the Empire. 
It was probably on the occasion of this banquet that the 
dialogue took place which was reported to the historian 
Socrates by the eye-witness Auxano. 'Well/ said the Em- 
peror, ' do you agree with the Creed and the settlement of 
* the Paschal question ? ' ' There is nothing new, your 
' Majesty,' replied Acesius, ' in the decisions of the Council, 
' for it is thus that from the beginning, and from the apos- 
' tolical times, I have received both the definition of the 



1 Biblioth. Patr. p. civ. 

a See Lecture IV. p. 115. 

3 Theodoret (i. 10) speaks of the 
Emperor doing this to all who had lost 
their right eye ; but Rufinus (i. 4) and 



Socrates (i. 11) fix it specially to Paph- 
nutius. Gregory of Caesarea (De Pat. 
Nic. 316) names the banquet, but extends 
it to all. 
* Ruf. i. 4 . 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



LECT. V. 



* faith, and the time of the Paschal Feast.' * Why, then,' 
said the Emperor, ' do you still remain separate from the 

* communion of the Church ? ' The old dissenter could not 
part with his grievance ; he entrenched himself within his un- 
failing argument ; he poured forth an animated description 
of the doings in the Decian persecution, and of the strict- 
ness of primitive times, which the Church had surrendered. 

* None,' he said, ' who after baptism have sinned the sin, 

* which the Divine Scriptures call the sin unto death, have a 

* right to partake in the Divine mysteries. They ought to 

* be moved to perpetual repentance. The priests have no 
' power to forgive them ; only God, who alone has the right 

* to pardon sins. 7 So spoke the true ancestor of the Puritans 
of all ages, — the true mouthpiece of that narrow spirit, 
which thinks itself entitled to pronounce on the sins which 
can never be forgiven; which makes a show of charity in 
delivering over its adversaries to what are called, as if in 
bitter irony, the uncovenanted mercies of God. The Em- 
peror, for once, was not overawed. His natural common 
sense came to the rescue. He replied, with that short dry 
humour which stamps the saying as authentic : ' Ho ! ho ! 
' Acesius ; plant a ladder, and climb up into heaven by 

* yourself.' 1 

These are the last actual words which we have from the 
Emperor on this solemn occasion, so characteristic, so full 
of instruction for the Puritans and sectarians of all times, 
that we might well take leave of him with those words 
Farewell ad- on n P s - But quite in accordance with their 
dress of the general spirit is the farewell speech, of which the 
Emperor. su b stance on iy h as b een preserved to us, made by 
him to the assembled Bishops, on one of the days immedi- 
ately before their departure. As they stood in his presence, 
he renewed, with the additional experience which the last 
month had afforded, his exhortations to mutual peace. ' Let 
1 them avoid their bitter party strifes [here, no doubt, he 

1 Soc i. jo. 



LECT. V. 



THE EMPEROR'S FAREWELL. 



* looked at the deputation from Alexandria] ; let them not 
1 envy anyone distinguished amongst the Bishops for wisdom 

* [here he would glance alternately at the detractors of Hosius 
4 and of his own Eusebius] ; but regard the merit of every 
1 single individual as common property Let not those who 
4 were superior look down on their inferiors [here a look at 
4 Acesius]. God only could judge who were really superior. 
1 Perfection was rare everywhere, and therefore all allowance 

* must be made for the weaker brethren [here a glance of 
4 commendation to Paphnutius] ; slight matters must be 

* forgiven ; human infirmities allowed for ; concord prized 
' above all else. Factions only caused the enemies of the 
1 faith to blaspheme. In all ways unbelievers must be saved. 
4 It was not everyone who would be converted by learning 
' and reasoning [here he may have turned to Spyridion and 

* the philosopher]. Some join us from desire of mainten- 
4 ance [this he said in accordance with a well-known principle 

* which he was wont to commend] ; some for preferment 

4 some for presents ; nothing is so rare as a real lover of 
4 truth. We must be like physicians, and accommodate our 
4 medicines to the diseases, our teaching to the different 
4 minds of all.' 1 Finally, he begged their earnest prayers to 
Heaven for himself ; and dismissed them on their journey to 
their several homes with letters to all the provinces through 
which they passed, with the injunction to celebrate his 
own twentieth year by liberal support to the returning pre- 
lates. He also ordered that in every city a yearly allow- 
ance of provisions should be made for the widows and 
nuns, and other sacred ministers. This endowment lasted, 
though in a diminished amount, to the middle of the fifth 
century. 2 

Another decree ordered that corn should be exported to 
those countries where it was rare, for the purpose of the 
sacramental elements. This led afterwards to violent re- 

1 Eus. V. C. 321. reduced to one third by Jovian. Theod. 

■ It was suspended by Julian and in. 



THE COUNCIL OF NIOEA. 



LECT. V. 



criminations between the Arians and Athanasius, as the head 
of the great corn-country of Egypt. 1 

Before the end of August, Nicaea was restored to its former 
state, but the fame of the Council still lingered on the spot. 
It was said that they had met for the last time in a building 
in the centre of the town— probably the same as that which 
had received them on their first arrival — to pray for their 
own safe return, and for the welfare of the city. Tradition 
pointed out a spring, which was believed to have sprung up 
in consequence in the centre of the apse. 2 When the Arians 
held a synod at Nice in Thrace, it was in the hope that under 
the common name of the Nicene Creed their own views 
might receive a better reception. 3 When the Fourth Gen- 
eral Council was summoned, it had been the Emperor Mer- 
cian's first wish to have it, not at Chalcedon, but within the 
sacred walls of Nicaea. The last Council which has been 
acknowledged as oecumenical both by the Greek and the 
Latin Church received no doubt additional weight from its 
being held at Nicaea, the scene of the first and greatest of 
them alL It was supposed to have given the city impreg- 
nable strength when attacked by the Persians. When a pri- 
soner was taken who came from Nicaea, it was a security for 
his being well treated by his captors. 4 

The prelates returned, as they went, at the public ex- 
pense. Some, it is said, 5 were specially commissioned to 
Departure of carry the decrees of the Council to the different 
the Bishops. p rov inces of the Empire. The only reception of 
which any detailed mention is preserved, is that in the 
Reception of Armenian Church. Aristaces is said to have met 
the Decrees, fog f at her Gregory and King Tiridates at Velasa- 
bata, and delivered to them the Nicene Canons. 6 To these 

1 See Lecture VII., and Tillemont, * Tillemont, vi. 287. The Council, 
viii. 32. afterwards divided into the two of 

2 Greg. Cses. 365. For the supposed Ariminum and Seleucia, was to have met 
inspiration of these parting prayers and at Nicsea. Theod. ii. 26 ; Soz. iv. 16. 
acclamations, see Sarpi's History of the s The names are given in Photius, 
Council of Trent, ii. 747. Biblioth. 471 , Gelas. iii. 27 

3 Soc. ii. 29. See Mansi, ii. 727 6 Moses Choren. ii, 87, 88. 



LECT. V. 



ITS CLOSE. 



169 



Gregory added a few rules, and then retired into a moun- 
tain cave, and never appeared again, leaving the diocese to 
Aristaces. The hymn of praise said to have been used on 
occasion of this event is still preserved in the Armenian 
Church : 1 ' We glorify Him who was before all ages, adoring 
4 the Holy Trinity, and the one only Divinity of the Father, 
« the Son, and the Holy Ghost, now and ever, through ages 
' of ages. Amen.' 

The day celebrated in the different Churches as the an- 
niversary of the Council was probably that on which these 
decrees and letters were published. 

Two legends, characteristic of the Churches of the East 
and West, mark the interest which each attached to the 
. P reception of these decrees. When they arrived at 

Legend of . 

the Council Rome, so runs the Latin story, Sylvester convened, 
under Syl- with Constantine's consent, another Council of 
277 Bishops, in which the Nicene decrees were 
enforced by the Pope's authority, and in which a number of 
minute regulations were inserted, descending even to the 
material of which the dress of Roman deacons was to be 
made. 2 It is one of the fables by which the Roman Church 
has endeavoured to establish a precedent for its authority 
over Councils, as the like fables of the Donation of Con- 
stantine, and the false Decretals, were intended to establish 
its authority over princes and kingdoms. Like all such 
fables it recoils on its framers. The best proof that no such 
authority existed is the necessity of so manifest a fiction to 
supply the place of facts. 

The Eastern legend is far more pleasing, and may 
Legend of P oss ibty have some slight foundation of truth, 
the death of Before the Bishops finally left Nicaea, Constantine, 

Metrophanes . . , , . . , , - 

of Byzan- it was said, announced that he had one favour to 
beg. They granted it. It was that they would 
return with him to Byzantium to see Metrophanes, the aged 

' 1 am glad to refer for this quotation to the compendious but learned History of 
the Fourth Century, by the Rev. W. Bright, p. 27. 
1 Anast. Vit% Pont. p. 36. 



THE COUNCIL OF NICEA. 



LECT. V. 



Bishop of that city, whom he called his father ; and to bless 
by their presence the new city which he was about to found. 1 
They came ; and on the Sunday they met both the Emperor 
and the Bishop of the future capital of the Eastern Church. 
The Emperor then adjured the aged prelate to name his 
successor. Metrophanes replied, with a smiling countenance, 
that a week since it had been intimated to him in a dream, 
how ten days from that time his end would come, and he 
accordingly named Alexander of Byzantium his successor, 
and the boy Paul 2 to be the successor of Alexander. Then 
turning to the Bishop of Alexandria : * You, too, my brother,' 
he said, 'shall have a good successor.' And, taking the 
young deacon Athanasius by the hand : ' Behold,' said he, 
' the noble champion of Christ ! Many conflicts will he 
' sustain, in company not only with my successor Alexander, 
' but even with my next successor Paul.' With these words 
he laid his pall on the Holy Table for Alexander to take ; 
and in seven days afterwards, on the 4th of June, expired in 
his 117th year. 3 Such, according to the Byzantine tradition, 
was the inauguration of the next two great events of Eastern 
ecclesiastical history, the Foundation of the City and Church 
of Constantine, and the Commencement of the Pontificate 
of Athanasius. 

So ended the Council of Nicasa. There remain some 
general inferences to be deduced from this detailed account 
of its history. 

1. Fragmentary as the narrative has been, every one 
must have observed how various are the incidents that it 
„ embraces. Every party has had its turn : every 

Diversity of , it, 

incidents in one, as the story has gone on, must have heard 
the Counci . g^g^ j trust, congenial to his own predilec- 
tions ; something also, I trust, which has been distasteful. 
This is as it should be. This it is which makes us sure 



5 1 Which he had founded,' is the version in Photius. 1 To make it a patriarchal 
'city,' Hist, of Alex. Patr. 79. 

a See Lecture III. p. 100. 3 Photius, Bibliotk 



LECT. V. 



ITS LESSONS. 



171 



that we are reading, not a mere conventional legend, but a 
real chapter of human life ; grave and gay, high motives and 
low, wise sayings and foolish. This also makes us feel that 
we are still far back in the first ages of the history of the 
Church. The elements of thought and feeling which at 
Ephesus, at Chalcedon, at the Second Council of Nicsea, at 
Florence, or at Trent, are narrowed into a single channel, or 
excluded altogether, are here all blended in one mixed 
stream. Every Church feels that it has some standing-place 
in the Council Chamber at Nicaea. In this, the highest 
sense, the Council was truly CEcumenical. 

2. It is impossible not to notice the powerful influence 
exercised over the results of the Council by personal cha- 

,. racter. Take away Constantine, Athanasius, Eu- 

Effect of in- m 9 ' 

dividual cha- sebius of Csesarea, Hosms, Paphnutms, — and how 
materially its conclusions would have varied ! It 
is a truth enforced upon us both by history and experience, 
yet often put aside by theological speculations in former days, 
and by philosophical speculations in the present. 

3. I have before spoken of the advantage of contrasting 
the later apocryphal representations of the Council with the 
Contrast of earlier ones. We have now seen what the con- 

legendary . . 

and his- trasts are. The profusion of miraculous portents, 
counts, fanciful legends, and rhetorical exaggerations in 
the later versions, sets off the simplicity and the vividness 
of the old accounts. The claims of the Roman Church, 
which occupy so large a space in the later Roman annals, 
have no place in the true contemporary accounts of the 
Council. In the descriptions of Eusebius and Athanasius, 
the Bishop of Rome is an old man kept away by illness, 
who would have had a high, perhaps the highest, place, as 
Bishop of the capital city, if he had been there. This is all. 
The later additions represent the Council as convened by 
him, its decrees as confirmed by him, and a separate Council 
as convoked by him at Rome to receive them. By the 
difference between the two statements, we can judge of the 



172 



THE COUNCIL OF NIGEA. 



LECT. V. 



difference between the earlier and the later systems. Again, 
in the earlier accounts, the heathen philosophers are attracted 
by curiosity ; in the later, they are hired by the Arians : in 
the earlier, the mutual complaints are made by the Orthodox 
Bishops ; in the later, they are made by the Arians. By the 
difference between the two accounts, we can judge of the 
growth of theological calumny. 

4. Finally, let me briefly touch on the settlement of the 
general controversies which gave occasion to the Council's 
Settlement convention. They may have seemed, perhaps, a 
fogkai'con- wearisome study, but they still leave solid lessons 
troversies. an( j truths behind. ' Old religious factions,' says 
Burke, ' are volcanoes burnt out : on the lava and ashes 
- and squalid scoriae of extinct eruptions, grow the peaceful 
' olive, the cheering vine, and the sustaining corn.' Most 
true is this in the present instance. The Eastern Creed of 
Nicsea, indeed, as compared with that of the Western 
Church, commonly called the Apostles', is a controversial 
and elaborate composition ; and we may justly rejoice that 
it is the Apostles' Creed, rather than the Nicene, which has 
been chosen by the English Church as its one test of 
membership and communion. But as compared with 
almost all subsequent Creeds, — as compared even with the 
Creed (so called) of Constantinople ; 1 still more, as com- 
pared with the precise definitions of Ephesus and Chal- 
cedon ; still more, as compared with the Creed (so called) 
of Athanasius ; still more, as compared with the modern 
confessions of Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, — 
the Nicene Creed is simple, moderate, and comprehensive. 
Nicene Only one technical word is incorporated in its 
Sark d aginst language ; other words relating to the subtle con- 
dogmatism, troversies of the age— ' Perichoresis,' ' Probole,' 
• Theotocos,' even ' Hypostasis ' (except in a phrase which 
it condemns) — have no more place in it than if they had 
never existed. The anathemas, indeed, represent the 

1 See Lecture IV. 



LECT. V. 



ITS LESSONS. 



173 



passions of the time, and as such have long been discarded. 
But even they might fairly be taken, as Eusebius and 
Constantine took them, as protests against the excessive 
definitions of the opposite party, against the exaggerated 
inferences drawn by Arius and his followers from figures 
and metaphors, which, in relation to the invisible world, 
can never be pressed literally without extreme danger to 
the cause of truth and faith. The late Bishop Kaye con- 
sidered the distinction drawn at the Council between 
Athanasians and Arians to be ' the greatest misfortune which 
'ever befell the Christian 1 Church.' But, as has 2 been 
well observed, it would have been a greater misfortune had 
the Council given an Arian definition, or had it defined 
further than it did. In hardly any subsequent age of the 
Church should we have fared so well. To Calvin the 
very pathos and solemnity of the Creed seemed but as a 
dull repetition. For ho?n 'oonsios he would have substituted 
the not less dogmatic and more barbarous word, autotheos. 
The decree of Ephesus, forbidding the introduction of any 
new Creed, 3 well expresses the sense which the Church of 
that age entertained of the growing dangers of theological 
disputation. That decree was afterwards set aside in the 
letter by the Council of Chalcedon, and in the spirit by 
many subsequent acts of the Church. But the decree 
itself remains as a venerable and sure indication of the 
mind of Eastern, if not of Catholic, Christendom ; and the 
original Creed of Nicaea, though almost overlaid by the 
Confessions of later ages, yet still, even in its altered 
form, may be regarded as the standing bulwark and protest 
of the Church against an excessive spirit of dogmatism. 

But the work of the Council of Nicaea has been also 
justly regarded as a bulwark of the Orthodox faith. Luther, 
with the felicity of expression which so often distinguished 



' ' Claims of Truth,' by the Rev. 
Charles Wodehouse, p. 15. 

* Professor Jowett, 'On the Inter- 



' pretation of Scripture,' ' Essays and 
* Reviews,' p. 420. 
* See Lecture IV. 



174 



THE COUNCIL OF mCJEA. 



LECT. V. 



his short sayings, described the Homoousion as a propug- 
and of Or- naculum fidei, not the faith itself ; not the actual 
thodoxy. citadel, but its outpost in the enemy's country. 
Such is the light in which the word was regarded by Atha- 
nasius himself. 1 He and those who acted with him were 
eager to make a stand somewhere against the infringement 
of the received ideas of the Divine Nature ; and the truth, 
of which this particular form was an expression, and round 
which this special controversy raged, was held by them to 
be the central truth of Christianity. This is not the place 
to discuss so grave a question as the proportion of the 
doctrines of religion, 'the analogy of faith.' First, and 
above all, stand those great moral doctrines of the Gospel 
to which the highest place has been assigned beyond 
dispute in the Gospel itself. But, next after these, ecclesi- 
astical history teaches us that the most vital, the most 
comprehensive, the most fruitful, has been, and is still, — 
not the supremacy of the Bible or the authority of its 
several books, not the power of the Pope or of the Church, 
not the Sacraments, not Original Sin, not Predestination, 
not Justification, but the doctrine of the Incarnation.' 2 
And it is a pregnant fact that this doctrine, and none of 
those just named, which have each in its turn been by 
different sections of the Church regarded as the pivots of 
theological controversy, was the one which exclusively en- 
gaged the attention of the Fathers of Nicsea. 

1 So Ath. de Syn. 45 : wcnrep entreC- 2 See Lecture VII., and Sermons on 

Xto>ta Kara 7id(7ij? ao«'/3ovs imvotas ' The Bible, its Form and its Substance,' 
avrwv. pp. 96-99. 



LECT. vi. THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. 



*75 



LECTURE VI. 

THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. 



The authorities for the Life of Constantine are as 
follows : — 

I. Ancient 

1. Lactantius. (De Mort. Persec.) A.D. 250 — 330. 

2. Eusebius. A.D. 264 — 340. 

a. Life of Constantme. 

b. Panegyric on Constantine. 

c. Constantine's Address. 

3. The Letters and Treatises of Athanasius. A.D. 296— 

373. 

4. Eumenius. (Panegyric at Treves.) A.D. 310. 

5. Nazarius. (Panegyric at Rome.) A.D. 321. 

6. Julian. (Caesars.) A.D. 331 — 363. 

7. Eutropius. A.D. 350 ? 

8. Aurelius Victor. (Epitome.) A.D. 370 ? 

9. Zosimus. A.D. 430 ? 

II. Modern. Of these may be mentioned specially : 

1. (German.) { The Life of Constantine the Great,' by 

Manso. (18 17.) 

2. (French.) 4 The Church and the Empire,' by Albert, 

Prince de Broglie ; of which the Life of Constan- 
tine is the most remarkable portion. 



In describing the Council of Nicaea, I spoke of two cele- 
brated men, each a pillar of the Eastern Church, each 



176 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



claiming also a place in general ecclesiastical history. One 
was the Emperor Constantine, the other was the Arch- 
deacon Athanasius. 

The Emperor Constantine is one of the few to whom 
has been awarded the name of ' Great.' Though this was 
Historical deserved rather by what he did, than by what he 
position of was : — though he was great, not among the first 

Constantine. , r i 1 i 1 « 

characters of the world, but among the second ; 
great like Philip, not like Alexander ; great like Augustus, 
not like Caesar ; great with the elevation of Charlemagne 
or Elizabeth, not with the genius or passion of Cromwell or 
of Luther ; — yet this gives us a stronger sense of what the 
position was which could of itself confer such undoubted 
grandeur on a character less than the highest. ' It is one 
' of the most tragical facts of all history,' says Mr. Mill, 

* that Constantine, rather than Marcus Aurelius, was the 

* first Christian Emperor. It is a bitter thought how dirTe- 

* rent the Christianity of the world might have been, had it 

* been adopted as the religion of the empire under the 
4 auspices of Marcus Aurelius, instead of those of Con- 

* stantine.' 1 The whole history of the fourth century 
should be read in the light of that sad reflection, because it 
serves both to hold up to us the ideal of what the Christian 
Church and Christian theology might have been, and to 
remind us of what, under the existing conditions, it must 
have been, and actually was. 

But although Constantine was not Marcus Aurelius, 
nor S. Louis, nor Gustavus Adolphus, yet there is a pro- 
' • - found interest in his imperfect complex character, 

Subject of . ** . , r 1 

theological which renders it peculiarly interesting as a subject 
criticism. o £ t }j eo i 0 gi ca i study. Over its virtues and vices 
the Pagans and Christians quarrelled during his lifetime. 
' You may believe safely,' says the candid Fleury, ' what- 
' ever Eusebius the Bishop has said in his blame, or 
' Zosimus the heathen in his praise.' The Orthodox and 

1 Essay on Liberty, p. 58. 



lect. vi. HIS HISTORICAL POSITION. 



177 



the heretics have each claimed him ; and a great writer 1 in 
our own time, though in one of his least remarkable works, 
has even gone so far as to avow that the services of Con- 
stantine to the Church ought to have closed the door 
against all censures of his character, had not his patronage 
of heresy restored to us the right of freedom of speech. In 
the estimate of his character the Greek and Latin Churches 
have each a stake. The Eastern Church, regarding him 
as especially her own, has canonised him as a saint, ' equal 
to the Apostles.' The Latin, at least the modern Latin, 
Church prides itself on superior discernment. Yet she also 
has, as we shall see, a dark corner in the story of Con- 
stantine ; and, if the Eastern Church were to recriminate, 2 
there would be no difficulty in finding parallel blots in the 
founder of Western (as Constantine was of Eastern) Chris- 
tendom—the 'beatified,' though not 1 canonised,' Charle- 
magne. 

Nor is his life without a special connection with the 
history of our own Church. To English students I cannot 
forbear recalling that he was, if not our fellow- 

Connection ° . 

witheccie- countryman by birth, yet unquestionably pro- 
tory of Eng- claimed Emperor in the Praetorium at York. He 
probably never visited our shores again. Yet the 
remembrance of that early connection long continued. It 
shaped itself into the legend of his British birth, of which, 
within the walls of York, the scene is still shown. His 
father's tomb was pointed out in York till the suppression 
of the monasteries. His mother's name lives still in the 
numerous British churches dedicated to her. London Wall 
was ascribed to him. One argument pleaded by the English 
ecclesiastics for precedents in the Council of Constance 
and Basle was that Constantine had been a born English- 
man. 

I have already described him as he appeared in the 

1 Newman, History of the Arians, p. 138. 

3 See Mouravieff, Questions Religieuses, ii. 16. 

N 



i;8 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vx. 



Council of Nicaea. Handsome, tall, stout, broad-shouldered, 
His personal ne was a high specimen of one of the coarse 
appearance, military chiefs of the declining Empire. When 
Eusebius first saw him, 1 as a young man, on a journey 
through Palestine before his accession, all were struck by 
the sturdy health and vigour of his frame ; and Eusebius 
perpetually recurs to it, and maintains that it lasted till the 
end of his life. In his later days his red complexion and 
somewhat bloated appearance 2 gave countenance to the 
belief that he had been affected with leprosy. His eye 
was remarkable for a brightness, 3 almost a glare, which 
reminded his courtiers of that of a lion. He had a con- 
temptuous habit of throwing back 4 his head, which, by 
bringing out the full proportions of his thick neck, procured 
for him the nickname 5 of Trachala. His voice was re- 
markable for its gentleness and softness. 6 In dress and 
outward demeanour the military commander was almost lost 
in the vanity and affectation of Oriental splendour. The 
spear 7 of the soldier was almost always in his hand, and on 
his head he always wore a small helmet. But the helmet 
was studded with jewels, and it was bound round with the 
Oriental diadem, which he, 8 first of the Emperors, made a 
practice of wearing on all occasions. His robe was re- 
marked for its unusual magnificence. It was always of the 
Imperial purple or scarlet, and was made of silk, richly 
embroidered with pearls and flowers worked in gold. 9 He 
was especially devoted to the care of his hair, 10 ultimately 
adopting wigs of false hair 11 of various colours, and in such 
profusion as to make a marked feature on his coins. 12 First 
of the Emperors, since Hadrian, he wore a short beard. 

1 V. C. i. 19, 20. Compare Lact. de 6 Eus. V. C. iii. 9. 

Mort. Persec. c. 18. 7 Ibid. iv. 30. See p. 245, infra. 

2 Cedrenus, 269. 8 Aurelius Victor, Epit. p. 224? 
■ Ibid. Cedrenus, 295. 

* Aurelius Victor, Epit. 224 ; Manso, 9 Eus. Laud. Const, c. 5. 
p. 412. 10 Cedrenus, 209. 

* Cedrenus, 269 : wa^vs rbv rpaxv " Julian, Cses. 335, 336. 
Kov. 12 Eckel, viii. 72. 



LECT, VI. 



HIS CHARACTER. 



i/9 



He was not a great man, but he was by no means an 
ordinary man. Calculating and shrewd as he was, yet his 
His cha- worldly views were penetrated by a vein of religious 
racter. sentiment, almost of Oriental superstition. He had 
a wide view of his difficult position as the ruler of a divided 
Empire and divided Church. He had a short dry humour 
which stamps his sayings with an unmistakable authenticity, 
and gives us an insight into the cynical contempt of man- 
kind 1 which he is said to have combined, by a curious yet 
not uncommon union, with an inordinate love of praise. He 
had a presence of mind which was never thrown oft* its guard. 
He had the capacity of throwing himself, with almost fanatical 
energy, into whatever cause came before him for the moment. 
One instance, at least, he showed of consummate foresight 
and genius. 

We have seen from his dress, and we see also from his 
language, that he was not without the wretched affectation 
which disfigured the demeanour of the later Emperors. 2 
Against one great old Roman vice, that of voracious glut- 
tony, he struggled, but struggled in vain. 3 The Christian 
accounts all speak of his continence. Julian alone insinuates 
the contrary. 4 It was only as despotic power and Eastern 
manners made inroads into the original self-control of his 
character that he was betrayed into that disregard of human 
life, in his nearest and dearest relationships, which, from the 
same causes, darkened the declining years of the Grecian 
Alexander and the English Henry. 

It will be my object in the following Lecture to trace 
this character through three epochs of his ecclesiastical life : 
as the first Christian Emperor ; as the first example of the 
intervention of a sovereign power in the internal affairs of 
the Church ; and as occupying peculiar relations towards 
the Western and Eastern Churches. These aspects are in 
fact more or less represented by the three periods of his 

1 Eus. Laud. Const, c. 5 ; Aurelius * Julian. Caes. 329, 335. 

Victor, Epit. p. 224. * Ibid. 

3 See Lecture IV, p. 115, 

N 3 



l8o THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. leci. vi. 

reign, according to a somewhat severe proverb which spoke 
of him as excellent for the first ten years, as a robber for the 
next twelve, as a spendthrift for the last ten. 1 

I. Every student of ecclesiastical history must pause for 
a moment before the conversion of Constantine. No con- 
His conver- version of such magnitude had occurred since the 
"SI' A (Oct. apostolic age. None such occurred again till the 
20 ?) baptism of the several founders of the Teutonic 
and Sclavonic kingdoms. 

Like all such events, it had its peculiar preparations, and 
took its peculiar colouring from the circumstances of the 
time and the character of the man. He had the remem- 
brance of his father Constantius — just such a 'devout' 
believer in Divine Providence as we find so common in the 
Roman army several generations earlier, in the many good 
centurions of the New Testament. He had a lively re- 
collection of the Christian arguments used before Diocletian. 
His rival Maxentius was a fierce fanatical Pagan, armed with 
magical arts, as was supposed, against which any counter 
supernatural influences were much to be cherished. He 
was approaching Rome for the first time, and was filled with 
the awe which that greatest of earthly cities inspired in all 
who named its name, or came within its influence. It is 
needless to repeat at length the story which Eusebius gives 
on the testimony of the Emperor himself. That he was in 
prayer on his march ; — that 4 about noon, as the day was 
' declining,' 2 a flaming cross appeared in the sky with the 
words ' In this conquer ' ; — that in the night which followed 
he saw in a dream the figure of Christ bearing a standard, 
such as in Christian pictures is represented in the Descent 
to the departed spirits ;— that on consultation with Christian 
clergy in the camp he adopted this sacred banner instead 
of the Roman eagles, and professed himself a disciple of 
the Christian faith. This differs materially from the several 



1 Aurelius Victor, Epit. p. 224. 

3 See the explanation of this ex- 



pression in the Notes to Lactantius, 
c. 44 (i. 315). 



LECT. VI. 



HIS CONVERSION. 



181 



narratives of the Christian Lactantius, the Pagan Nazarius, 
ad 312 anc ^ tne Arian Philostorgius. Yet those stories 
(the former speaking of a dream in which the 

His vision. . , . . . . 

monogram of the name of Christ was ordered to 
be inscribed on the shields of the soldiers, the latter of 
flaming armies in the sky) point to some fact of the same 
kind : and it is not often in ancient history that we have a 
statement so immediately at first hand, as this of Eusebms 
from Constantine. That the Emperor attested it on oath, 
as the historian tells us, is indeed no additional guarantee 
for the Emperor's veracity ; because, like princes professing 
piety in modern times, he appears to have been in the con- 
stant habit of adding an oath 1 to almost every asseveration. 
But this very circumstance is an additional guarantee for the 
veracity of Eusebius in his version of the story. And further, 
that some such change, effected by some such means, took 
place at this crisis, is confirmed not only by the fact of Con- 
stantine's adoption of the Christian faith immediately after- 
wards, but by the specific introduction of the standard of 
the cross into the army, in great measure, though not entirely, 
agreeing with the indications in the narrative. 

If we suppose that the appearance was seen by others 
besides Constantine himself, it may well have been some 
such natural phenomenon as is known by the name of a 
parhelion,' which in an afternoon sky not unfrequently 
assumes almost the form of a cross. The impression pro- 
duced may be compared to the effect of the Aurora Borealis 
which appeared in November, 1848, and which was inter- 
preted in the various countries of Europe according to the 
feeling uppermost at the moment, much as we may imagine 
that any like appearance would be by the army of Constan- 
tine. In France, it was regarded as forming the letters 
L.N., in prospect of the Presidential election then impend- 
ing. In Oporto, it was regarded as the fire descending 
from on high to visit the crimes of a profligate city. In 

1 See Lectures III. p. 8x, IV. p. tax. 



182 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



Rome, it was believed to be the blood of the murdered 
Rossi gone up to heaven to cry for vengeance 
" ' 3I2 ' against his assassins. 

If we suppose, on the other hand, that it was an appear- 
ance to Constantine alone, there is nothing more surprising 
than in the vision which effected the conversion of Colonel 
Gardner, and which was related by himself to Dr. Doddridge, 
as that of Constantine to Eusebius. 1 The conversion of 
Colonel Gardner was doubtless more complete, and his con- 
victions more profound ; but there is nothing in Constantine's 
character to prevent the possibility of such an occurrence. 
He was far from being the mere worldly prince of a worldly 
age. Not he only, but his whole family, were swayed by a 
strong religious sentiment, bursting out in different channels, 
— in the pilgrimages of Helena, in the Arianism of Con- 
stantia and Constantius, in the Paganism of Julian, — but in 
all sincerely, as far as it went. To Constantine himself 
dreams, visions, and revelations were matters, as he and his 
friends supposed, of constant recurrence. His knowledge of 
the conspiracy of Maximin against his life, of the approach 
of the army of Licinius ; the conception of the statue repre- 
senting a dragon overthrown, before his palace ; the dis- 
covery of the Holy Sepulchre ; the dedication of Constanti- 
nople, are all ascribed by Eusebius to direct intimations from 
heaven. 2 He was a prophet to those around him, no less 
than a sovereign. We should not be surprised at the story of 
such a vision in the life of Cromwell, neither ought we to be 
in the life of Constantine, even were the issues which hung 
upon it less momentous than they really were. 
The Battle The victory of the Milvian Bridge is one of 
vian Bridge, the few battles that have decided the fate of the 
Oct. 28, a.d. church no i ess t h an 0 f the world. It was not 

without cause that in the results of the engagement, as 



1 Dr. Doddridge's version of the pears, in its main points, to be well 
story, in spite of its contradiction by founded. 

Dr. Carlyle (Autobiography, p. 19), ap- * Eus. V.C. i. 27, 28, ii. 12, iii. 3, 29- 



LECT. VI. 



HIS CONVERSION. 



183 



well as in its details of the entanglement of men and horses 
in the eddies of the Tiber, Christians should have been 
reminded 1 of the great deliverance of the Jewish Church, 
when 'the horse and his rider were thrown into the 
'sea,' and Israel came out free from the bondage of the 
Egyptian Pharaoh. It was the first fulfilment, as it seemed, 
of the motto which Constantine had seen in his vision — 
Co?iquer ; and from this and his subsequent victories, which 
followed in rapid succession, over his several rivals, he ac- 
quired the name of Conqueror, which, both in its Latin and 
Greek form {Victor, Nicetes), passed almost into a proper 
name, and is held up as the omen of his career by his 
Christian eulogists. This victory ended the age of perse- 
cutions, and ended also the primitive period of ecclesiastical 
history. A Roman legend represents the seven-branched 
candlestick of Jerusalem to have been lost on that day in the 
waves of the Tiber. On that day, too, was lost the simpler, 
ruder form of the Christianity of the first three centuries. 
From that day onwards, the 28th of October, in the year 
312, began the gradual recognition of the Christian faith by 
those measures, some questionable, some admirable, which 
invest the career of Constantine with peculiar significance. 

The triumphal arch which bears his name, and which was 
erected as a trophy of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, is a 
. . . standing monument, not only of the decay of art 

Ambiguous 0 7 J J 

giigion of which had already made itself felt, but of the 
' hesitation of the new Emperor between the two 
religions. The dubious inscription on its front well marks 
the moment of transition. ' Instinctu Divinitatis et mentis 
magnitudine ' are the two causes to which the senate ascribes 
the victory. ' Divinitas,' or Providence, is the word 2 under 
which, in his public acts, he veils his passage from Paganism 
to Christianity. His statues, in like manner, halted between 
the two opinions. That erected at Rome held in its hand 
the Emperor's well-known spear, but the spear bore the form 

1 Eus. V. C. i. 38. * This is well brought out by Broglie, i. 234-239. 



1 84 THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



of a cross. That at Constantinople was in the image of his 
ancient patron deity Apollo ; but the glory of the sun- 
beams was composed of the emblems of the Cruci- 
a.d. 312. fi x } on) an( } underneath its feet were buried in strange 
juxtaposition a fragment of the ' True Cross ' and the ancient 
Palladium of Rome. His coins bore on the one side the 
letters of the name of Christ ; on the other the figure of the 
Sun-god, and the inscription 1 Sol invictus/ as if he could not 
bear to relinquish the patronage of the bright luminary which 
represented to him, as to Augustus and to Julian, 1 his own 
guardian deity. 

The same tenacious adherence to the ancient God of 
light has left its trace, even to our own time, on one of the 
most sacred and universal of Christian institutions. The 
retention of the old Pagan name of ' Dies Solis? or ' Sunday/ 
for the weekly Christian festival, is, in great measure, owing 
to the union of Pagan and Christian sentiment with which 
the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine 
to his subjects Pagan and Christian alike, as the ' venerable 
* day of the Sun. 5 His decree, regulating its observance, has 
been justly called 2 ' a new era in the history of the Lord's 
'day.* It was his mode of harmonising the discordant 
religions of the Empire under one common institution. 

These ambiguities, though in part the growth of Con- 
stantine's own peculiarities, lose much of their strangeness 
. and gain in general interest, when viewed in the 

Ambiguous ° 0 . ' 

religion of light of the age of which they were a part. In 
eage. ^ e cnan g e from Roman Catholicism to Protest- 
antism in the English Reformation, it would be easy to 
adduce parallels of persons who wavered so constantly be- 
tween the two, that it is difficult to know exactly what place 
to assign to them. Elizabeth herself may suffice as a speci- 
men. This may prepare us for finding that even in the 
much greater change from Paganism to Christianity the 
boundary lines were less abrupt than at this distance we are 

1 Julian, Ep. 51. 2 Dr. Hessey's Bampton Lectures, pp. 77-89. 



LECT. VI. 



HIS CONVERSION. 



I8 5 



apt to fancy. Orpheus and Pan appear as representing 
our Saviour in the Christian catacombs. The labours of 
Hercules are engraven on the chair — undoubtedly old, 
possibly authentic — of S. Peter. The Jordan appears as a 
river god in the baptistery at Ravenna. Some of the epi- 
taphs in the Christian catacombs begin with the usual Pagan 
address to the gods of the grave. Even in the fifth century, 
a Pope was suspected of consulting the Etruscan auguries 
in the terror of Alaric's siege. In the sixth century, whether 
Boethius was a Christian or a Pagan is still matter of dispute ; 
and Bishops of that age in the neighbourhood of Antioch 
were accused of being present at a human sacrifice. 1 

We may remember the striking remarks of Niebuhr : — 

* Many judge of Constantine by too severe a standard, be- 

* cause they regard him as a Christian ; but I cannot look 
1 upon him in that light. The religion which he had in his 

* head must have been a strange jumble indeed 

' He was a superstitious man, and mixed up his Christian 

* religion with all kinds of absurd superstitions and opinions. 

* When certain Oriental writers call him "equal to the 
4 "Apostles," they do not know what they are saying ; and 
« to speak of him as a saint is a profanation of the word.' 2 

This is true in itself. But, in order to be just, we must 
bear in mind that it probably describes the religion of many 
in that time besides Constantine. And it is indis- 
A ' D * 3I3 ' putable, that, in spite of all these inconsistencies, 
he went steadily forward in the main purpose of his life, 
that of protecting and advancing the cause of the Christian 
religion. The Paganism of Julian, if judged by the Paganism 
of Cicero or of Pericles, would appear as strange a compound 
as the Christianity of Constantine, if judged by the Chris- 
tianity of the Middle Ages or of the Reformation. But 
Julian's face was not set more steadily backwards than was 
Constantine's steadily forwards. The one devoted himself 



1 Ecclesiastical History of John of a Lectures on Roman History, v. 

Ephesus, iii. 29. 449. 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



to the revival of that which had waxed old and was ready 
to vanish away ; the other to the advancement of that which 
year by year was acquiring new strength and life. 
Constan- It is not necesary to do more than enumerate 

San' legist- tne acts °f Constantine's ecclesiastical legislation, 
tion. j n or d er to see the vastness of the revolution of 
which he was the leader. 

In the year after his conversion was issued the Edict of 
Toleration. Then followed, in rapid succession, the decree 
for the observance of Sunday in the towns of the Empire, 
the use of prayers for the army, 1 the abolition of the punish- 
ment of crucifixion, the encouragement of the emancipation 
of slaves, the discouragement of infanticide, the prohibition 
of private divinations, the prohibition of licentious and cruel 
rites, the prohibition of gladiatorial games. Every one of 
these steps was a gain to the Roman Empire and to man- 
kind, such as not even the Antonines had ventured to at- 
tempt, and of those benefits none has been altogether lost. 
Undoubtedly, if Constantine is to be judged by the place 
which he occupies amongst the benefactors of humanity, he 
would rank, not amongst the secondary characters of history, 
but amongst the very first 

II. From Constantine's Christian legislation for the 
Empire, we naturally pass to his intervention in the affairs 
His inter- of the Church itself. Of this the most direct ex- 
the affairs of ample was that which we have already seen in the 
the Church. Council of Nicaea. But that event was only the 
chief manifestation of the new relations which he introduced, 
and which to Eusebius appeared no less than the fulfilment 
of the Apocalyptic vision of the New Jerusalem. 

Here, also, the conflict of his own personal character has 
left its marks even to this hour. On the one hand, he never 
forgot, nor did the ecclesiastics ever forget, that he was the 
consecrated Emperor of the world ; and that, even in their 
company, he regarded himself as the Bishop of Bishops. 

1 These contained one germ of ' Te Deum.' Eus. V.C. iv. 39. 



lect. vi. HIS CONTROL OF THE CHURCH. 



I8 7 



That General Councils are called, maintained, and controlled 
by the Imperial power, was first laid down by 
General' Constantine, and is still one of the established 
maxims of the Eastern Churches, and also of the 
Church of England. 1 On the other hand, he always felt a 
Established mysterious awe in the presence of the clergy, 2 
hierarchy. w hich probably first awakened in them the sense of 
their position as a distinct order in the State ; and which, 
although less prominent in the East, became in the West 
the germ of the Papal and hierarchical system of the 
middle ages. But his leading idea was to restore peace to 
the Church, as he had restored it to the Empire. 3 In the 
execution of this idea two courses of action presented them- 
selves to him, as they have to all ecclesiastical statesmen 
ever since. He stands at the head of all, in the fact that he 
Latitudi- combined them both in himself. In him both the 
narianism. latitudinarian and the persecutor may find their 
earliest precedents, which were both alike approved by the 
ecclesiastics of that age, though in later times he has been 
as severely condemned for the one as he has been praised 
for the other. No scheme of comprehension has been 
broader, on the one hand, than that put forward in his 
letter of advice to Alexander and Arius ; 4 and on the other, 
when this failed, he still pursued the same end, with the 
same tenacity, by the directly opposite means of enforcing 
uniformity, to us long familiar, but first introduced by him 
Subscription mt0 tne Church — the hitherto unknown practice 
to Creeds. 0 f subscription to the articles of a written Creed, 
and the infliction of civil penalties on those who refused to 
conform. 

These were his public measures, natural in a half-educated 
soldier suddenly awakened to a sense of a position of almost 
unprecedented political importance, yet complicated by the 
contradictions in which such a man, so placed, was almost 



1 See Lecture II. pp. 66-68. 

2 See Lecture III. p. C2. 



* ' Quietis Instaurator.' 

* See Lecture III. p. 81. 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



certain to be involved. Legislators and ecclesiastics in later 
times have followed in his footsteps, without the same excuse ; 
and, on the whole, with no greater success. 

What his personal convictions may have been, in regard 
to the peculiar doctrines which he successively attacked and 
defended, it is impossible to determine. But we cannot 
doubt his sincere interest in some at least of the questions 
which were raised. Like his nephew Julian, 1 although with 
a far ruder education and a less fantastic mind, he threw 
himself into the disputations of the time as a serious business 
of Imperial state. Not only did he at the festival of Easter 
His devo- spend the night in prayer with every appearance of 
nons. devotion, and even preside at the most sacred cere- 
monies, but he alternately, as student or teacher, took part 
in Christian preaching. 2 The extravagant adulation of his 
followers hardly left him any choice. Eusebius ascribes to 
him a direct inspiration from Heaven : — ' We do not instruct 
' thee, who hast been made wise by God. We do not dis- 
' close to thee the sacred mysteries, which long before any 

* discourses of men God Himself revealed, not of men nor 

* by men, but through our common Saviour, and the Divine 

* vision of Himself which has often shone upon thee.' 3 If 

h\ att nd ^ e ^ ^ sten t0 t ^ ie sermons °f others, it was re- 
anceonser- garded as an act of the highest condescension. 

Eusebius has left us an account of one which he 
himself delivered to 'the marvellous man,' as he calls him, 
on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was in the 
Palace There was a crowded audience. The Emperor 
stood erect the whole time; would not be induced to sit 
down on the throne close by ; paid the utmost attention ; 
would not hear of the sermon being too long : insisted on 
its continuance ; and, on being again entreated to sit down, 
replied, with a frown, that he could not bear to hear the 
His preach- truths of religion in any easier posture. 4 More 
' m s- often he was himself the preacher. One such 

? Broglie, iii. 281. " Eus. V. C. iv. 39. 3 Laud. Const c 11. 4 V. C. iv. 32. 



lect. vi. HIS CONTROL OF THE CHURCH. 1 89 

sermon has been preserved to us by Eusebius. These ser- 
mons were always in Latin ; but they were translated into 
Greek by interpreters appointed for the purpose. On these 
occasions a general invitation was issued, and thousands of 
people flocked to the Palace to hear an Emperor turned 
preacher. He stood erect ; and then, with a set countenance 
and grave voice, poured forth his address ; to which, at the 
striking passages, the audience responded with loud cheers 
of approbation, the Emperor vainly endeavouring to deter 
them by pointing upwards, as if to transfer the glory from 
himself to heaven. 

He usually preached on the general system of the Chris- 
tian revelation ; the follies of Paganism ; the Unity and Pro- 
vidence of God ; the scheme of redemption ; the judgment ; 
and then attacked fiercely the avarice and rapacity of the 
courtiers, who cheered lustily, but did nothing of what he 
had told them. On one occasion he caught hold of one of 
them, and, drawing on the ground with his spear the figure 
of a man, said : 4 In this space is contained all that you will 
'carry with you after death.' 1 

III. If Constantine was intoxicated by his success at 
Nicaea, and by the enthusiasm of his ecclesiastical admirers, 
he can hardly be blamed. To these influences probably, 
and to the demoralising effect of his Oriental habits, must 
be attributed the melancholy fact that he was, by general 
consent, a worse prince at the close of his reign than at 
its beginning, when he was little better than a Pagan. 2 

On this the third part of his career, where the incidents 
of his life and the indications of his character were more 
closely connected, we now enter. It has been lately drawn 
out with a skilful eloquence, perhaps in its details beyond 
the strict warrant of facts, but in its general outline suffi- 
ciently justified. 3 

In the year following the Council of Nicasa, Constantine 

1 V. C. iv. 29, 31. Probably addressed to Ablavius. (See Broglie, ii. 83.) 
1 Eutrop. x. 7 ; Aurelius Victor, Epit. 224. 3 Broglie, ii. 93-114. 



190 THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 

visited Rome for the first time since his declared conversion. 
Two events marked this fatal visit. 

The first brings before us in a striking form the decay 
of the old religion and the rise of the new. The Emperor 
TheProces- arrived at Rome a short time before the Ides 
Equeftrian of Quintilis, the 15th of July. That day was the 
order. anniversary of the battle of the Lake Regillus, 
when the twin gods, Castor and Pollux, had fought for Rome, 
and brought the glad tidings of victory to the city. On this 
day a grand muster and inspection of the Eques- 
trian order formed part of the ceremony, in honour 
of the two equestrian gods. 1 All the knights, clad in purple 
and crowned with olive, rode in state to the Forum. It was 
considered one of the most splendid pageants of Rome. The 
cavalcade sometimes consisted of 5,000 horsemen. It is this 
festival which Lord Macaulay has celebrated in his Lay on 
the Battle of the Lake Regillus. A few of his lines will place 
us more in the presence of the spectacle which Constantine 
saw, than any lengthened prose description : — 

' Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note ! 

Ho, lictors, clear the way ! 
The Knights will ride, in all their pride, 

Along the streets to-day. 
To-day the doors and windows 

Are hung with garlands all, 
From Castor in the Forum 

To Mars without the wall. 
Each Knight is robed in purple, 

With olive each is crown'd ; 
A gallant war-horse under each 

Paws haughtily the ground. 
While flows the Yellow River, 

While stands the Sacred Hill, 
The proud Ides of Quintilis 

Shall have such honour still. 



See Zosimus, ii. 2. 



lect. vi. HIS LAST VISIT TO ROME. 



191 



Gay are the Martian Kalends : 

December's Nones are gay : 
But the proud Ides, when the squadron rides, 

Shall be Rome's whitest day.' 

Of this august ceremonial the shadow still remained, 
and its great recollections endeared it to the Roman popu- 
lace ; but its meaning was passed away ; and Constantine not 
only refused to take part in the rites of worship which it in- 
volved, but, as the procession rode by, could not restrain the 
sarcastic humour for which he was renowned, and openly 
indulged in jest at the sham knights and the empty pomp. 

The Roman people were furious. A riot broke out in 
the streets. He remained impassive. It was probably on 
this occasion that he uttered one of his cold dry sayings. A 
courtier rushed in to announce that stones had been thrown 
at the head of one of the Emperor's statues. The Emperor 
passed his hand over his face, and said with a smile : 4 It is 
* very surprising, but I do not feel in the least hurt. There 
'is nothing amiss in my head ; nothing in my face.' Years 
afterwards this speech was constantly quoted. ' Length of 
' time,' says Chrysostom, 'has neither weakened nor extin- 
guished the memory of such exalted wisdom. . . . His other 
'exploits are forgotten. But this is not only heard and 
' repeated, but repeated with applause : everyone who hears 
'it cries out and prays for innumerable blessings on the 
' departed Emperor.' 1 

But, however favourable the impression thus produced 
of his placability, the disgust which this incident awakened 
in his mind against the city and religion of Rome 

Crimes of , , , , . , • , . , , . , . , . 

the imperial rankled deep withm ; and side by side with it we 
dimly trace a tragedy, which, in its mysterious in- 
terest, and in the consequences to which it led, ranks with 
any to which history or fiction has ever been devoted. 
The Imperial family consisted of various heterogeneous 
elements. 2 There were, first, the offspring of the two 

1 Chrysostom, Horn, de Stat. xxi. n. 3 See the Genealogy, p. 211. 



192 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vr. 



marriages of Constantius Chlorus : Constantine, the son of 
the low-born Helena ; and his three half-brothers, sons of 

Theodora, who was daughter of the Emperor 
a.d. 326. Maximian. Next were in like manner the double 
offspring of Constantine himself : Crispus, the son of the 
obscure Minervina ; Constantine, Constantius, and Con- 
stans, the sons of Fausta, sister of Theodora ; and thus aunt 
to her husband's three half-brothers. Thirdly, there was 
Constantia, sister of Constantine, wife of Constantine's rival 
the Emperor Licinius, and mother of a young prince of the 
same name. Every one of these characters contributes to 
the drama which has met with a parallel twice over in 
European history : the story of Philip II., Isabella, and Don 
Carlos ; the story of Peter the Great and his son Alexis. 1 
It is easy to imagine the animosities and partialities of 
Helena, the Empress-mother, in the Sessorian Palace \ 2 
of Fausta, the reigning Empress, in the adjoining Palace 
of the Lateran ; of the two lines of Imperial Princes against 
each other. Out of this vortex of mutual suspicion emerge 
three dark crimes, faintly known at the time, hardly men- 
tioned above a whisper even in the next generation, passed 
over without a word from the courtly Eusebius, glanced 
at without the names by Chrysostom ; yet in some form 
or other incontestably true, and connected more or less 

certainly with Constantine's last visit to Rome. 
Cnspus. Crispus, the heir to the throne — suspected of 
high- treason, says one tradition ; of intrigue with his 
step-mother, says another — is, by his father's orders, put to 
, . . . death at Pola. The young Licinius, apparently as 

Licinius. - - , - -.. r 1 r 1 ■ 

part of the same plan, is torn from the arms of his 
mother Constantia, and murdered in the remote East. If 
the party of Fausta for a moment triumphed in the de 
struction of these two youthful rivals, their hopes were soon 



1 The parallel of Don Carlos must be 
received with the qualifications which 
later discoveries have introduced into it. 
It is its older form that so nearly re- 



sembles the murder of Crispus. That of 
Alexis is still unshaken. 

2 Now Santa Croce in Gierusa- 
lemme. 



lect. VI. FOUNDATION OF THE PAPAL POWER. 193 



overcast. The Empress Helena, 1 furious at the loss of her 
favourite grandson, turned the dark suspicions of her son 
into another quarter, and the next victim was Fausta her- 
■ ' self. 2 She was accused of unfaithfulness with one 
of the Imperial Guards ; 3 according to the Byzan- 
tine tradition of the next century, exposed to starvation on 
the top of some desert mountain ; 4 according to the more 
usual story, suffocated in the vapours of the Imperial bath. 

However secret these horrors might be, yet enough 
transpired to rouse the popular feeling of Rome, already 
wounded by the Emperor's neglect of the sacred rites of 
the city. An inscription was found one day over the gates 
of the Palatine, catching at once the two weak points of 
Constantine's character, his Oriental luxury and his cruelty : 

* Saturni aurea saecla quis requirit ? 
Sunt hasc gemrnea, sed Neroniana.' 

From this black period of Constantine's life flow, in a 
sequence more or less remote, four great results of ecclesias- 
tical history. 

i. The foundation of the Papal Power in Rome. 

In the Emperor's passionate remorse (so the story ran 
in the Pagan circles of his subjects) his thoughts turned 
back to the old religion which he had deserted. He 
applied to the Flamens at Rome for purification. 5 They 
proudly declared that for such crimes their religious ritual 
knew of no expiation. He turned (so another version re- 
ported) to philosophy. He sought for relief from Sopater, 6 
the chief of the Alexandrian Platonists, and from him also 
the same stern answer was received. In this extremity 
(and here Pagan and Christian accounts to a certain extent 

1 Zos. ii. 20. , Aurel. Vict. Epit. 224. 6 He assisted in the dedication of 

* For all the authorities see Clinton's Constantinople, but is said to have been 
Fasti Romani, a.d. 326. afterwards put to death by Constantine- 

3 Philost. ii. 5. as a proof of his own orthodoxy Soz. 

* Chrysostom, in Philipp. Horn. xv. i. 5 . Zosimus, ii. 40 Suidas in voce. 

* Julian, Caes. 336. 

O 



194 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



coincide) he sought refuge in the new religion which he 
r had taken under his protection. There was an 

Story of the . . . _ 

absolution of Egyptian magician from Spain, well known among 
the ladies of the Imperial court, who assured 
him that in the Christian Church were mysteries which 
provided purification from any sin, however great Through 
this Spanish Egyptian, or Egyptian Spaniard, according to 
Zosimus, the conversion of Constantine took place. Taken 
literally this cannot be true. The conversion of the Em- 
peror had taken place long before. His baptism, as we 
shall see, took place long after. But the story is not, 
therefore, to be rejected as wholly false. That Spanish 
counsellor, we cannot doubt, was the well-known Hosius, 
Bishop of Cordova, the Emperor's counsellor in the West, 
as Eusebius of Caesarea in the East. He would be on the 
spot with Helena and her suite. He, as the confidential 
adviser of Constantine, would be the very person that the 
Empress would most naturally consult ; and he would in 
all probability give the very answer which to Pagan ears 
seemed so monstrous : ' There are no sins so great, but that 
' in Christianity they may find forgiveness/ It is a doctrine, 
which, according to the manner in which it is presented to 
us, is indeed the worst corruption or the noblest boast of 
the Christian religion. ' In Christianity there is forgiveness 
for every sin.' This may be the hateful Antinomianism 
which, in the Protestant Church, has taken shelter under 
the Lutheran doctrine of ' Justification by Faith only ; ' in 
the P.oman Catholic Church, under the scholastic doctrine 
of Priestly Absolution. But it may also be the true message 
of the Gospel ; the reception of the prodigal son, of the 
woman who was a sinner, and of the thief on the cross ; 
the doctrine that the Divine forgiveness is ever at hand as 
soon as man turns to be forgiven. Of this intervention of 
her great Hosius, the Church of Spain has made the most 
But there was yet another version of the story, of which 
the Churoh of Rome has made still more. According to 



lect. vi. THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 195 



Sozomen, 1 it was not Hosius but Sylvester, Bishop of 
Story of the R° me > wno tnus received the penitent Emperor, 
absolution of and who gave him, not only consolation, but the 

Sylvester. ; 

actual rite of baptism. And such a representation 
is curiously in accordance with the easy reception of gross 
sinners of which Tertullian complains in earlier Bishops of 
Rome, probably Callistus. 2 

Out of this version, in part certainly false, in part 
founded on truth, arose the portentous fable of the Dona- 
tion of Constantine, which, as an example of all such 
fictions, ought never to be forgotten by students of eccle- 
siastical history. In the seventh year of his reign (so, 
omitting all mention of his crimes, the legend runs) Con- 
stantine was struck with leprosy. He consulted all phy- 
sicians in vain. Jews recommended to him the blood of 
infants. 3 The magical arts of the heathen sorcerers gave 
way before the sanctity of the Roman Bishop. He heard 
that the aged Sylvester was living in concealment on the 
heights of Mount Soracte, where the convent now stands 
which bears Sylvester's name. He sought him out. He 
was baptised by him in the Lateran Palace. In return, he 
gave to him, as his spiritual father, not only the scene of 
his baptism, but the dominion over the city of Rome, over 
Italy, over the Western Empire. 

' Ah ! Constantine ; to how much ill gave birth, 
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains 
That the first wealthy Pope received of thee ! ' 4 

So Dante described, in the bitterness of his heart, what 
he believed to be the origin of the Pope's temporal sove- 
reignty. And even when the progress of criticism had 
taught the next great Italian poet to place the Donation of 

1 Soz. i. 5. dimitto. O edictum cui non ascribi 

3 Tert. de Pudicitia, i. 7 : Pontifex potuit Bonum factum ! ' 

Maximus, quod est Episcopus Episco- 3 Cedrenus, 271. 

porum, edicat : Ego et moechiae et for- * Inferno, xix. 115. (Milton, Prose 

nicationis delicta pcenitentia functis Works, i. ir.) 

O 2 



1 96 THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 

Constantine in the moon amongst the things which have 
never been, the ecclesiastical historians of Rome still clung 
to such shreds of truth as the story contained, even at the 
risk of making the Papal power the price of an absolution 
for the murder of a son, a nephew, and a wife. 

But though the actual transaction of the baptism and of 
the donation is fabulous, there was a slight connection of 
fact between the crime of Constantine and the early rise of 
Roman ecclesiastical grandeur. 

There is every probability that remorse, taking the form 
of devotion, as in the princes and prelates of the middle 
ages, should have led to the building of churches at Rome, 
and the attachment of certain privileges to the see of Rome. 
It is false that Constantine gave the Roman States. But it 
may possibly be true that he gave (to use the modern 
phrase) 1 a palace and a garden ; ' and there is little doubt 
that the Lateran Palace, which had actually belonged to the 
Empress Fausta, and had been already assigned by him to 
ecclesiastical purposes, was formally made over by him to 
the Roman see. Parts of the building — especially the 
baptistery— are actually of his time, and it must be from 
some strong historical reason that the Palace and Church of 
the Lateran, rather than S. Peter's and the Vatican, form 
the nucleus of Christian and Papal Rome. Here, and not 
in S. Peter's, have all the Roman Councils been held. 
This, and not S. Peter's, is the Cathedral Church of Rome, 
the mother Church of Christendom. 

4 Dogmate Papali datur ac simul Imperially 
Quod si'm cunctarum mater caput ecclesiarum? 

Here, and not in the Vatican, was the early residence, and 
still take place the enthronisation and coronation, of the 
Popes. On the throne of the Lateran, and not on the chair 
of S. Peter, is written the proud inscription : 



1 Hcbc est Papalis Sedes et Pontiftcalis? 



lect. vi. FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 97 



This, if we may so apply Ariosto's words as translated by 
Milton, — 

' This is that gift, if you the truth will have, 
Which Constantine to good Sylvester gave. 5 1 

2. There is yet another particle of truth in the story of 
Foundation tne Donation. According to the fable of Sylvester, 
of Constan- Constantine retired to Greece, 2 in order to leave 

tinople. A.D. ' 

326. Italy for the Pope. 

1 Per cedere al Pastor sifece Greco! 3 

So said the legend. And it was undoubtedly the case, that 
by retiring to the East he left the field clear for the Bishops 
Retirement °f R° me - I n the absence of the Emperors from 
from Italy. R 0 me, the chief Christian 4 magistrate rose to new 
importance. When the barbarians broke upon Italy, the 
Pope thus became the representative of the ancient Re- 
public. It is one of the many senses in which the famous 
saying of Hobbes is true, that the Papacy is but ' the ghost 
' of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the 
' grave thereof.' 

His retirement from Rome may well have been in part 
occasioned by remorse for the crimes which he had there 
sanctioned. The belief in such a connection was perpetuated 
in the story that the first monument erected in his new city 
was the golden statue of Crispus, underneath which was 
written: 'To my innocent and unfortunate son.' More 
certainly his retreat was caused by a revulsion from the 
Roman Paganism. For Rome was Pagan. He and her 
Pagan customs had come into collision on the Ides of 
Quintilis in a manner never to be forgotten. He determined 
to make a new Rome elsewhere. A striking parallel is found 



1 Orlando Furioso, xxiv. 80. 
a See, for all the authorities, Gie- 
seler, ii. 336. 

a Dante, Paradiso, xx. 55. 

* Compare the importance of the 



position which the Patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, as representative of the 
Byzantine Church and Empire, now 
holds under the Sultan, 



I98 THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vj. 

in the case of another great potentate of the Eastern Church. 
Moscow, the centre of old Russia, was to Peter the Great 
as Rome, the centre of old Paganism, was to Constantine ; 1 
and he founded his new capital at Petersburg (the very 
adoption of the name is exactly analogous) as Constantine at 
Constantinople. 

Of all the events of Constantine's life, this choice is the 
most convincing and enduring proof of his real genius. No 
Choice of city, chosen by the art of man, has been so well 
nopie^AD cnosen J an d so permanent Alexandria is the 
33°- nearest approach. All the others erected by the 

fancy or policy of individual sovereigns are miserably inferior, 
Berlin, Madrid, and even Petersburg. He had thought of 
other spots in the neighbourhood: Sardica in Mcesia 2 ('my 
Rome is,' he said, 'at Sardica ') ; or Troy, following the old 
tradition against which Horace had protested But when, 
at Chrysopolis (Scutari) and Nicaea, he had seen Byzantium. 
As his conversion was ushered in by the story of a preter- 
natural apparition, so was his choice of this, as it may well 
be called, predestinated capital. An eagle flew from the 
opposite shore to mark the spot. Sopater, the Neoplatonist, 
assisted with his heathen ceremonies at the consecration. 
He himself, in solemn procession, traced the boundaries of 
the city with his well-known spear, and when asked to halt 
in the immense circuit, replied, ' I shall go on till He who 
'guides me stops.' ' Jubente Deo' are his own words in 
describing his choice. 3 

The situation is indeed unrivalled. It stands, alone of 
the cities of the world, actually on two continents. It has 
the advantages of the confluence as of two rivers, and of a 
splendid maritime situation besides ; for such is the effect, 
both in appearance and reality, of the Bosphorus and the 
Golden Horn, and the deep waters of the Propontis. As in 
the combination of these advantages, narrow straits, deep 



See Lecture XII. 



2 Broglie, ii. 144. 



3 Broglie, ii. 154. 



lect. vi. FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 1 99 

inlets, numerous islands, prolonged promontories, Europe is 
the miniature of the civilised world ; and Greece, with its 
^gean Sea, is the miniature of the geography of Europe ; 

so the local peculiarities both of Greece and 
a.d. 330. £ ur0 p e are concentrated and developed to the 
highest degree in Constantinople. It is impossible to look 
down from the Galata Tower on the complication of sea 
and land, island and mainland, peninsula and promontory, 
strait and continent, and not feel that the spot is destined 
to be, what it seems more and more likely to be both his- 
torically and politically, the Gordian knot of the world. 

And this situation is further designed by nature, not 
merely for a great city, but for a capital of the most impos- 
ing aspect, nay more, for a second Rome. As truly a city 
of the sea as any of the maritime cities of the West, it has 
the advantage of being raised aloft on a line of hills, 
towering high above the level waters of the Bosphorus. 
These hills, too, are seven in number — seven, not like the 
hills of old Rome, indistinctly and confusedly, but each 
following each in marked and august succession — each 
crowned even now, and probably crowned always, by mag- 
nificent buildings (mosques now, churches then), closing in 
the mass of verdure which gathers round the buildings of 
the palace on the extreme eastern point. 

And this glorious city, ' the City] as it 1 alone is called, 
is but the crowning scene which rises in the midst of the 
three other quarters, Galata, Pera, Scutari, each with its 
own towers and forests ; and the whole intervening space 
between and around is now, and probably was always since 
its foundation, alive with skiffs and boats and ships and 
flags of all the nations of the world. In the Apocalyptic 
vision of Babylon, which brings together in one the various 
images of worldly greatness, there are features taken from 
the ancient Tyre, which are vainly sought in the old Rome 



: Stamboul is ei? tt\v n6\iv, being however, has again been corrupted into 
itself a corruption of Istambul, which, IslambuL 



200 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. 



LECT. VI. 



beside the Tiber. Constantinople alone unites them all. 
Few would pretend to say that she was designed, however 
remotely, in the prophet's vision. But it is a 
a.d. 330. p roo f 0 f j^r Imperial splendour, that she, and she* 
alone, in her union of traffic, and ships, and regal state, and 
her seat of seven hills, represents the highest local images of 
earthly grandeur as therein presented to our view. 

What of the ancient empire may have been within the 
city has now almost entirely perished. Considering how all . 
the world was spoiled to adorn the city of Constantine, and 
what vast treasures old Rome still possesses, it is remarkable 
how meagre are the Imperial remains of Christian Constan- 
tinople. But the immediate neighbourhood still recalls the 
glories of what has been, and what might be, a great capital. 
The Bosphorus with its palaces is the very ideal of the sub- 
urban retreats of an Imperial aristocracy. The walls which 
still surround the city of Stamboul with their threefold 
circuit, broken through and through, overgrown with the 
rank vegetation of neglected centuries, yet still stand to tell 
the sad story of the twenty-seven times besieged and thrice 
captured city of Constantinople, the fourth city in the world ; 
fourth, because second only in importance to Jerusalem, 
Athens, and Rome. 

I need not go further into detail. It has been fully de- 
scribed by two of the most remarkable historians of modern 
times. Gibbon has been inspired by it with a new life. 
Thrice in his history he describes it at length, as if he had 
seen it. The greatness of Constantinople forms the centre 
of the second part, almost as much as the fall of Rome of 
the first part, of his majestic work. Von Hammer, author of 
the ' History of the Ottoman Empire/ has devoted to it an 
exhaustive treatise, such as no other ancient city, except those 
I have just mentioned, has called forth. 

But the place of Constantinople in the history of the 
Church must be briefly indicated. 

It was the first Christian city. There were the spoils of 



lect. vi. FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 201 



heathenism within it, and there were some of those mixed 
First Chris- f° rm s of Christianity and of heathenism which I 
tian city. h ave a i rea dy noticed. But its differences from the 
old Rome were marked by two significant changes of out- 
ward feature. Instead of temples it had churches. Except 
during the short reign of Julian, no column of sacri- 
ficial smoke has ever gone up from the Seven Hills of Con- 
stantinople. In the place of the amphitheatre of the Colos- 
seum, with its brutal spectacles, was the comparatively 
innocent Hippodrome, with those chariot races, of which 
the blue and green factions interwove themselves with the 
less sanguinary, if not less eager, excitement, of theological 
hatred. 

It became the metropolitan city of the Eastern Church. 
To it was transferred the pre-eminence of the Apostolic see 
Chief eccie °^ ^ e neighbouring Ephesus. Before its presence 
siasticaUity the Primacy of the more distant Alexandria died 
away. Its Patriarch was the first to assume, and 
still exclusively retains, the title of ' CEcumenical.' Its see 
still bears the lofty name of ' the Bishopric of New Rome,' 
* the Great Church of Christ.' 1 Its monasteries and schools 
became the refuge of Christian and secular learning, when 
the West had almost relapsed into barbarism. 

It has been powerfully described, 2 how, when the life of 
Europe would have been arrested under the Latin hierarchy 
but for the intervention of some foreign element, 

Effects on 0 7 

the Refor- < Greece arose from the dead with the New Testa- 
'ment in her hand.' Most true. But Greece and 
the Greek Testament were preserved for that great crisis by 
the Empire and Church of Constantinople. It may have 
been a tomb ; but in that stately tomb the sacred light was 
kept burning till the moment came for it to kindle a new 
fire elsewhere. To the Greek exiles from the fallen city of 



1 See Gregory's Vindication of the 
Jurisdiction of Constantinople over Bul- 
garia, p. 150. 



2 Lecture on the Study of History 
by Professor Goldwin Smith. 



202 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vl 



Constantine we owe the purest and the most enduring ele- 
ments of the Reformation, namely, the New Testa- 

A.D. 453. . 

ment in its original language, and the revival of 
Greek learning which gave us critics and commentators to 
unfold its meaning. Long after the effects of Luther's work 
shall have been exhausted, the effects of Erasmus's work 
will remain, and the work of Erasmus, humanly speaking, 
could not have been achieved without the scholars of Con- 
stantinople. 

3. It is only by the coincidence of dates that we can 
trace any connection between the tragical visit to Rome and 
_ . . the foundation of the Holy Places of Palestine. 

roundation . . J 

of the Holy Yet it is so natural a conjecture, that we may at 

Places of , . , . . 

Palestine, least take advantage of it for briefly touching on 
a.d. 327. t kj g aS p ect Q £ Constantine's life. If it was not in 
order to seek expiation for her son's crimes, and consolation 
for her own sorrows, that Helena made her famous journey 
Pilgrimage to tne Holy Land, it was immediately consequent 
ofHeiena. upon them. Of the sacred relics which Helena 
found in Jerusalem, two were specially sent to her son : the 
nails which, as it was believed, had fastened the Saviour's 
hands to the Cross. The use to which he applied 
a.d. 327. them is so like himself and his age, and so unlike 
our own, as to require special notice. One was turned into 
the bit of his war-horse, the other into an ornament of his 
helmet. It is impossible in this appropriation of those sacred 
fragments not to recognise the fierce military Emperor of 
the old Pagan age, even though the Christian historians of 
the time strove to see in it a direct fulfilment of the pro- 
phecy, ' In that day shall be written on the bells of the horses, 
'Holiness unto the Lord.' 1 On the churches erected by 
Helena's instigation, and at Constantine's cost, over the caves 
at Bethlehem, Olivet, and Jerusalem, and on the modern 
controversy which rages over the most sacred of them, I need 
not dwell here at length. 2 This pilgrimage was the last act 

1 Zech. xiv 20 , Theod. i. 38. 1 See Sinai and Palestine, ch. xiy. 



lect. vi. RESTORATION OF ARIANISM. 203 



of the Empress Helena. She died on her return home, at 
her birthplace in Asia Minor. Rome and Constantinople 
dispute her remains. At Constantinople she was long 
known simply as 'the Empress' — 'Augusta;' and in the 
Calendar of the Eastern Church she and her son are always 
united. The same impulse that led Constantine to adorn 
the ancient sanctuaries of Palestine led him to consecrate 
new sanctuaries nearer to his own city. To him the Eastern 
Church ascribes the honour of the first religious foundations 
in Mount Athos. To have thus fixed on this hitherto un- 
occupied peninsula as the site of institutions so singularly 
appropriate to the scene is a trait worthy of the man who 
selected Byzantium for his capital. 

4. The restoration of Arius and his party was more cer- 
tainly connected with Constantine's crimes. The Princess 
Restoration Constantia, whose husband and son had both 
of Arms. p er i s hed by her brother's orders, was now on her 
death-bed at Nicomedia. She entreated to see the Emperor 
once more. He came ; and her parting request, backed by 
the influence of her chaplain Eustocius, 1 was that he would 
recall the Arian leaders, and restore unity to the Church and 
Empire. This request fell in with Constantine's own trou- 
bled conscience, and with his lcng-cherished desire for the 
union of the different parties in the Church. Amidst the 
many contradictions with which the history is here involved, 
the main facts are indisputable. Arius and the Nicomedian 
Eusebius are recalled. The troubles of Athanasius begin. 

The Council of Tyre, which marked the thirtieth, 
* D ' 335 ' as the Council of Nicsea had marked the twentieth, 
year of the reign of Constantine, marks also the changed 
relations of parties and events since the earlier assembly. 
Many of the same persons were then assembled, but Atha- 
nasius was now the defendant instead of Arius. Paphnutius 
and Potammon were there, as before, but on the losing side. 
The hero of the day was no longer Hosius or Eustathius, 

1 Photius Biblioth. 661. 



204 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



but Eusebius of Caesarea ; and under his auspices, and those 
of his partisans on the Arian or semi-Arian side, was dedi- 
cated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. It 
is one of the curious complications of ecclesiastical history, 
that this solemn event should be passed over without a word 
by the orthodox Athanasius, and that its only contemporary 
record should be from the heretic Eusebius, who assisted as 
Metropolitan of Palestine. 

It must have been during this period that Constantine 
said of the Gothic missionary Ulfilas, who had led his people 
across the Danube at the age of twenty-six, 'He is the 
* Moses of the Goths.' 1 To us who know what these Goths 
have been to us, and what the Bible of Ulfilas was to them, 
this speech shows the same kind of prophetic discrimination 
which marked the choice of Athos and of Constantinople 
for their respective purposes, or the selection of Lactantius 
to be the preceptor of his son, and of Eusebius and Hosius 
to be his own ecclesiastical advisers. 

The moment at last arrived when the union which 
the Emperor had so much at heart was to be decided. 
Athanasius was removed from the fury of his enemies by 
an honourable exile at Treves. Arius was to be received in 
triumph at Constantinople. Such was the Emperor's de- 
termination ; and it is characteristic of the position which 
he occupied in the Church, that in spite of the reluctance 
of the orthodox party to acknowledge the heretic, yet there 
seemed to them no alternative but to obey. 'Let me or 
' Arius die before to-morrow,' was the prayer of Alexander, 
the Bishop of Constantinople. That there was the third 
course of refusing to admit him never seems to have occurred 
to any one, after the Emperor's will had been made known. 
It is one of the few occasions in history where a difficult 
crisis has been solved by an unexpected death. That the 
sudden illness and decease of the aged Arius was a Divine 
judgment in behalf of the doctrine which he had opposed, 

1 Philostorgius, ii. 5. For his general mission see Lecture IX. 



lect. vi. HIS BAPTISM AND DEATH. 



205 



will now be held by no one who has any regard to the warn- 
ings of Christ Himself against any such inference. That it 
was the effect of poison, is contradicted by the actual cir- 
cumstances of his end. Like most ecclesiastical wonders 
of this kind, it was neither a miracle nor a crime ; it was a 
natural coincidence, and no more. 

It was, however, the passing away of one of the chief 
actors in the Council of Nicaea ; and now was come the end 
of the chiefest of all. There is no act of the life of Con- 
stantine so deeply instructive as his death. 

It was Easter, in the year 337. In the Church of the 
Apostles at Constantinople he had passed the night, with 
. more than his usual devotion, in preparation for 

The mortal . « •„ -i 

illness of his Persian expedition. An illness supervened : 

Constantine. , _ _ , . , . 

he went to Helenopolis to try the mineral waters 
a.d. 337. j n tne neighbourhood. The illness increased ; a 
sinister suspicion 1 of poison stole through the palace. He 
felt that it was mortal, and now at last he determined on 
taking the step, long delayed, but not yet impossible, of 
admission to the Christian Church. 

Incredible as it may seem to our notions, he who had 
five and twenty years ago been convinced of the Christian 
His baptism ' ^ e na -d 0 P ene d the first General Council 

of the Church ; he who had called himself a Bishop 
of Bishops ; he who had joined in the deepest discussions 
of theology ; he who had preached to rapt audiences ; he 
who had established Christianity as the religion of the 
Empire ; he who had been considered by Christian bishops 
an inspired oracle and apostle of Christian wisdom, 2 was 
himself not yet received into the Christian Church. He 
was not yet baptised ; he had not even been received as a 
catechumen. A death-bed baptism was to the half-converted 
Christians of that age what a death-bed communion often is 
to those of our own. In later ages, as we have seen, it was 
endeavoured to antedate the baptism of the Emperor by ten 

' Philost. ii. 4. » Eus. Laud. Const c. 2, 11. 



206 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



or twenty years. But at that time it was too common to 
attract any special notice. Good and bad motives alike 
conduced to the same end, and of all of these 
a.d. 337. Constantine was a complete example. He, like 
many of his countrymen, as has been indicated, united, 
after his conversion, a sincere belief in Christianity with a 
lingering attachment to Paganism. He, like some even of 
the noblest characters in the Christian Church, regarded 
baptism, much as the Pagans regarded the lustrations and 
purifications of their own religion, as a complete obliteration 
and expiation of all former sins ; and therefore, partly from 
a superstitious dread, partly from the prudential desire, not 
peculiar to that or any age, 'of making the best of both 
1 worlds,' he would naturally defer the ceremony to the 
moment when it would include the largest amount of the 
past and leave the smallest amount of the future. To him, 
as to all Christians of those times, baptism still preserved 
much of its original significance, which it has inevitably lost 
in the course of ages. It was still regarded as the solemn 
passage from one state of life to another ; from the darkness 
and profligacy of the heathen world to the light and the 
purity of the Christian society ; a step taken not as the 
natural accompaniment of birth and education, but as a 
serious pledge of conviction and of profession. The bap- 
tism of infants, no doubt, prevailed, just as the communion 
of infants prevailed also. But each of the sacraments must 
often have been deferred to a time when the candidates 
could give their whole minds to the subject If, even a 
century later, such men as Ambrose and Augustine, born in 
Christian families, and with a general belief in the main 
truths of Christianity, were still unbaptised, the one in his 
thirty-fourth, the other in his thirty-second year, we may be 
sure that the practice was sufficiently common in the far more 
unsettled age of Constantine, to awake no scruple in him, 
and to provoke no censure from his ecclesiastical advisers. 
The whole event is related in the utmost detail. In the 



LECT. VI. 



HIS DEATH. 



207 



Church at Helenopolis, in a kneeling posture of devotion, 
unusual in the East at that time, he was admitted to be a 
catechumen by the imposition of hands. He then 
' 337 ' moved to a palace in the suburb of Nicomedia, 
and then calling the Bishops around him, amongst whom the 
celebrated Arian, Eusebius, was chief, announced that once 
he had hoped to receive the purification of baptism, after our 
Saviour's example, in the streams of the Jordan ; but God's 
will seemed to be that it should be here, and he therefore 
requested to receive the rite without delay. 'And so,' says 
his biographer, 'alone of Roman Emperors from the begin- 
' ning of time, was Constantine consecrated to be a witness 
1 of Christ in the second birth of baptism.' The Imperial 
purple was at last removed ; he was clothed instead in robes 
of dazzling whiteness ; his couch was covered with white also : 
in the white robes of baptism, on a white death-bed, he lay, 
in expectation of his end. If the strict doctrine of Athana- 
sius were pressed, Constantine even at this moment failed 
of his wishes ; for his baptism was from the hands of an 
Arian Bishop, which, according to Athanasius, 1 was no bap- 
tism at all. But these theories are happily never pressed 
home to individuals. Constantine's baptism has always 
been considered as valid both in the East and West. The 
Arian baptism and the ' Orthodox ' canonisation must be left 
Recall of to neutralise each other. One act he is said to 
Athanasius. h ave performed on his death-bed, which raises 
him above the sphere of both parties. In spite of the 
opposition of Eusebius, 2 he ordered the recall of the exiled 
Athanasius ; and thus, as Theodoret observes, illustrated in 
his last hours the sacred but often forgotten duty of turning 
one of our two ears to hear the side of the accused party. 
The Arian influence, though it was enough to make him 
content with Arian consolations and Arian sacraments, was 
not enough to make him refuse justice at that supreme 
moment to the oppressed chief of the opposite party. 

1 Ath. Orat. c. Ar. i. 42, 43. 3 Theod. i. 31. 



208 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



His own delight at the accomplishment of the ceremony 
was excessive ; and when the officers of his army entered 
a.d. 337, the chamber of death, with bitter lamentations, to 
Death of m ake their last farewell, he bade them rejoice in 
Constantine. his speedy departure heavenwards. He gave his 
will into the custody of the Arian chaplain Eustocius, who 
had consoled the last hours of his sister Constantia, with 
orders that it should be given to his son Constantius. 1 
At noon on the Feast of Pentecost, the 22nd of May, in 
the sixty-fourth year of his age, and the thirty-first of his 
reign, he expired. A wild wail of grief arose from the army 
and the people, on hearing that Constantine was dead. The 
body was laid out in a coffin of gold, and carried by a pro- 
cession of the whole army, 2 headed by his son Constans, 
to Constantinople. For three months it lay there in state 
in the palace, lights burning round, and guards watching. 
During all this time the Empire was without a head. Con- 
stans, the youngest son, was there alone. The two elder 
sons had not arrived. He was still 'Augustus.' All went 
on as though he were yet alive. One dark shadow from the 
great tragedy of his life reached to his last end, and beyond 
it. It is said that the Bishop of Nicomedia, to whom the 
Emperor's will had been confided by Eustocius, alarmed at 
its contents, immediately placed it for security in the dead 
man's hand, wrapped in the vestments of death. There it 
lay till Constantius arrived, and read his father's dying be- 
quest. It was believed to express the Emperor's conviction 
that he had been poisoned by his brothers and their children, 3 
and to call on Constantius to avenge his death. That bequest 
was obeyed by the massacre of six out of the surviving princes 
of the Imperial family. Two alone escaped. With such a 
mingling of light and darkness did Constantine close his 
career. 

When the tidings reached Rome, the old metropolis 
steadily ignored the revolution that had passed over the 

' Soc. i. 39. ' Theod. i. 32. * Philost. ii. 18. 



LECT. VI. 



HIS TOMB. 



209 



world in the person of the deceased Emperor. He was 
regarded but as one in the series of the Caesars. He was 
enrolled, like his predecessors, as a matter of course, amongst 
the gods of the heathen Olympus. Incense was offered be- 
fore his statue. A picture of his apotheosis was prepared. 
Festivals were celebrated in his honour. 1 

But in his own Christian city of Constantinople he had 
himself arranged the altered celebration of his death. Not 
amongst the gods and heroes of heathenism, but amongst 
those who now seemed to him the nearest approach to 
them, the Christian Apostles, his lot was to be cast. He 
had prepared for his mausoleum a church, sometimes, like 
that which he had founded at Rome, called 'the Church 
' of S. Peter,' 2 but more usually ' the Church of the 
* Apostles,' or by a name truly indicating the mixture of 
Pagan and Christian ideas which led to its erection, the 
' Heroon? Twelve pillars commemorated them, six on each 
side, and between them was his own tomb. He could not be 
' Divus ; ' he would be ' Isapostolos ' (equal to the Apostles). 
This is the title by which he is canonised, and this title 
expresses the precise point of transition from the old to the 
new religion. 

Thither the body was borne 3 Constantius was now pre- 
sent ; and as it reached the church the Prince (for he too 
was still an unbaptised catechumen) withdrew with the Pagan 
guards, and left the Imperial corpse alone, as it lay aloft in 
the centre of the church in its sarcophagus of porphyry. 4 
Prayers were offered for his soul ; he was placed amongst 
the Apostles ; and he formally received the names which 
he had borne in life, and which then became so purely per- 
sonal that they descended to his sons, 'Victor, Maximus, 
1 Augustus.' 

' If anyone doubts what I have said of him,' says Theo- 

1 See Beugnot, Hist, du Paganisme. (Horn. 26 on 2 Cor.) says that the coffin 
3 Chrysost. Horn. 26 on 2 Cor. was in the vestibule, to show his in- 

■ See Theod. i. 34. feriority to the Apostles. 

* Cedrenus, i. 519. Chrysostom 

P 



2IO 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. lect. vi. 



doret, * let him look at what is still done at his sepulchre 
* and his statue.' Lights were burned before him ; prayers 
were offered up to him ; miracles believed to be wrought by 
him. 1 So passionate was the attachment of the people of 
Constantinople to the tomb of their founder, that the attempt 
to remove it for safety to another church whilst its own was 
being repaired, provoked a sanguinary riot. 2 

The church became the burial-place of the Byzantine 
Emperors. 3 There they all lay in Imperial state till in the 
fourth crusade the coffins were rifled and the bodies cast 
out. 4 The church itself remained till the capture of the city 
by Mahomet II., 5 on whom its ancient associations had still 
so much power that, though he destroyed it, he built close 
upon its site the magnificent mosque which bears his name, 
and in which he himself is buried, the founder of the second' 
series of Byzantine sovereigns, as Constantine had been of 
the first. 6 

So passed away the first Christian Emperor, the first De- 
fender of the Faith — the first Imperial patron of the Papal 
see, and of the whole Eastern Church, — the first founder 
of the Holy Places, — Pagan and Christian, orthodox and 
heretical, liberal and fanatical, not to be imitated or ad- 
mired, but much to be remembered, and deeply to be 
studied. 



1 See Philost. ii. 19 and notes. 

3 Soc. ii. 38. 

3 The bodies of S. Andrew and S. 
Timotheus and S. Luke were transported 
thither to increase its sanctity. Philost. 
iii. 2. 



* Theod. i. 34. A sarcophagus, 
called 'of Constantine,' still remains in 
the Museum in the Seraglio. 

5 Von Hammer, i. 390. 

" Ibid. 387, 400. 



<2 
H 

O 

u 

o 

o 
c 

o 



i 
s 

s 

•-JPh 

05 



CO <J 

S 1- 

co — |d 



w5 

8 

to 

a 

w 



8" - 



s 



HP 



-< o 



to£ 

O 
U 



hS 

8| 

co 

a 

CO 

S5 
O 

o 



Hco 
cor^ 

Is 

sJ 



-Ha 

OH 
O 



4rs 



>o 

<! II 

►J 

fa 



< 3 
o c 



1) U.5 *i 

■5 

s 1 ° § 

IT) « ts 



P 



Si 

j 



2 a" .2 (J 
6 S3 5 « ^ 

s 33 § 0 

2 

o 0 0 °3 

■rs cd cd cd "T3 

,52 11 cj <u D 
>QQQfl 

\d t>-od On d 
N N d ft fl 



o -a 

>*pq 

cS*o d « 8 
Soli's 

"o > o73 c 

2 §'-3 3 o 

>o' n m ro 10 
O M h w C4 
CO CO CO CO CO 



P2 



212 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



LECTURE VII. 

ATHANASIUS. 



The authorities for the Life of Athanasius are as 
follows : — 

I. Ancient 

1. Works of S. Athanasius (especially the Historical 
Tracts, with the learned annotations of Dr. Newman). 

2. Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Rufinus. 

3. 2 1 st Oration of S. Gregory Nazianzen. 

4. Letters of S. Basil. 

II. Of the Modern may be selected : 

1. Tillemont. (vol. viii.) 

2. Mohler. ('Athanasius, the Great;' German and 
French.) 

3. Bishop Kaye. (' Some Account of the Writings of 
Athanasius : ' appended to the work cited, p. 57.) 

As the life of Constantine represents what may be called 
the secular and Imperial aspect of the Church of the fourth 
century, and of the Eastern Church generally, so its ecclesi- 
astical and theological aspect is represented in the life of 
Athanasius. Like Constantine, although in a less degree, he 
presents to us one of those mixed characters which require 
such powers of discrimination as, in the study of ecclesiastical 
history, are at least as important as the powers of unbounded 
admiration or unmeasured invective. He also exhibits the 



lect. vii. AS REPRESENTING EGYPTIAN CHURCH. 21 3 

peculiar tendencies of his age and Church, in forms more 
likely to impress themselves on our memory than we could 
find in any other ecclesiastic of the Eastern Church, with 
the single exception of Chrysostom. And his course is so 
much the more significant than that of Chrysostom, as it in- 
cludes a wider range of events and involves far more lasting 
consequences. As in the case of Constantine, I shall take 
for granted a general knowledge of the history of Athanasius, 
and shall dwell only on those points which bring out clearly 
the sentiments of the time, the impression which he made on 
his contemporaries, and the permanent examples and warn- 
ings that he has left to the Church. What is thus to be 
noticed may be placed under three heads : — 

I. His connection with the Church of Egypt, including 
his early life and episcopal career. 

II. His contests with the Emperors, including the chief 
actions of his middle life and his general character. 

III. His peculiarities as a theologian, including also the 
close of his course. 

L He is the most remarkable representative of the 
Church of Egypt. So he is still regarded by the Coptic 
Church, and so he must have been at the time. 

As repre- 
sentative of What his own race and lineage may have been 

it is difficult to determine. We know that he him- 
self wrote and spoke in Greek, but he also was able to con- 
verse in Coptic His personal appearance throws but little 
His appear- light on this question. He was of very small 
ance - stature, a dwarf rather than a man (so we know 
from the taunt of Julian) ; 1 but, as we are assured by Gregory 
Nazianzen, of almost angelic beauty of face and expression. 2 
To this tradition adds that he had a slight stoop in his figure ; 
a hooked nose, and small mouth ; a short beard, which 
spread out into large whiskers ; and light auburn hair. 3 This 
last characteristic has been found on the heads of Egyptian 



1 Ep. 51 : fi-ijak avrip, dAA' avOpntni- * Orat. xxi. 9. 

cricos evreAijs. 1 Acta Sanctorum, May 2, c. 33. 



214 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



mummies, 1 and therefore is compatible with a pure Egyptian 
descent. His name might seem to indicate a Grecian pa- 
rentage ; but the case of ' Antony,' who was an undoubted 
Copt, shows that this cannot be relied upon. 

His first appearance is in a well-known story, 2 which, 
though doubted in later times from its supposed incongruity 
His child- w i tn tne dignity of a great saint, has every indica- 
hood. t j on 0 f truth. 3 Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, 
was entertaining his clergy in a tower or lofty house over- 
looking the expanse of sea beside the westernmost of the 
two Alexandrian harbours. He observed a group of children 
playing on the edge of the shore, 4 and was struck by the 
grave appearance of their game. His attendant clergy went, 
at his orders, to catch the boys and bring them before the 
Bishop, who taxed them with having played at religious 
ceremonies. At first, like boys caught at a mischievous 
game, they denied; but, at last, confessed that they had 
been imitating the sacrament of baptism ; that one of them 
had been selected to perform the part of Bishop, and that 
he had duly dipped them in the sea, with all the proper 
questions and addresses. When Alexander found that these 
forms had been observed, he determined that the baptism 
was valid • he himself added the consecrating oil of confir- 
mation ; and was so much struck with the knowledge and 
gravity of the boy-bishop that he took him under his charge. 
This little boy was Athanasius ; already showing the union 
of seriousness and sport which we shall see in his after life. 
That childish game is an epitome of the ecclesiastical feel- 
ings of his time and of his country. The children playing 
on the shore, the old man looking at them with interest ; 



1 Morton, Crania Hieroglyphica, 4to. 
p. 22 ; and the account of a mummy un- 
rolled by Mr. Birch of the British 
Museum. 

2 Rufinus ; Socrates ; Sozomen. 

3 The chronological difficulty of the 
day on which the event occurred is not 
material. 



* The mention of the Patriarchal re- 
sidence (which was at Baucalis (see p 
93),) and of the beach (which excludes 
the great harbour, completely occupied 
as it then was with quays and colon- 
nades), fixes the scene of this incident 
to the present harbour, called ' Eunos* 
tus ' in ancient times. 



lect. vii. AS BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA. 



215 



these, indeed, are incidents which belong to every age of the 
world. But only in the early centuries could have been 
found the immersion of the baptised, the necessity of a 
Bishop to perform the ceremony, the mixture of freedom 
and superstition which could regard as serious a ceremony 
so lightly performed. In the Coptic Church is retained the 
best likeness of this Eastern reverence for the sacred acts of 
children. A child still draws the lots in the Patriarchal 
elections. The almost infantine Deacons still carry on the 
larger part of its innocent childlike worship. 

From this incident arose the connection of Athanasius 
with the aged Alexander. He became his Archdeacon, an 
. , 3 office very different from that which is called by the 

Archdeacon ' J 

of Aiexan- same name amongst ourselves. It was then literally 
what the word implies, ' the chief of the deacons,' 
the head of that body of deacons whose duty it is to attend 
upon the Bishop. Of this kind is the office which still bears 
the name in the Eastern Church, and which is rendered illus- 
trious to Eastern Christians by the two great names of ' Arch- 
deacon Stephen ' and ' Archdeacon Athanasius.' It was in 
this capacity that he followed his Bishop to the Council of 
Nicsea, and defended the Orthodox cause with an energy 
which already awakened the jealousy and the admiration 
of all who heard him. 1 In a few weeks after the close of 
the Council Alexander died, and Athanasius succeeded to 
His conse- tne vacant see. It was a marked epoch, in every 
cration. sense, for the Egyptian Primacy. Down to this 
time (according to the tradition of the Alexandrian Church 
itself) 2 the election to this great post had been conducted 
in a manner unlike that of the other sees of Christendom. 



1 See Lecture III. 

a Jerome speaks of the custom as 
having lasted only till the Bishops Hera- 
clas and Dionysius (Ep. ad Evangel. 85). 
But the tradition of the Alexandrian 
Church, as preserved in Eutychius (i. 
331), maintained that it lasted till Alex- 
ander. The change which he ascribes 



to Heraclas is another, which may have 
led to Jerome's statement ; viz. that 
down to that time there had been no 
Bishop in Egypt except the Bishop of 
Alexandria. The whole question is well 
set forth in Le Quien, Oriens Chris- 
tianus, ii. 342. 



* 



216 



ATHANASIUS. 



ECT. VII. 



Not the Bishop, but twelve Presbyters, were the electors, and 
nominators, 1 and (according to Eutychius) consecrators. It 
was on the death of Alexander that this ancient custom was 
exchanged for one more nearly resembling that which pre- 
vailed elsewhere. Fifty Bishops of the neighbouring dioceses 
were convened for the first time, and proceeded to the elec- 
tion. Athanasius had been named both by the dying Primate 
and by the people as the new Bishop. He, setting an example 
which has since become a fixed rule in the Coptic Church, 
endeavoured to escape election by concealment or absence. 
To this day the formalities which accompany the election of 
his successors in the see of Alexandria are intended to in- 
dicate the same reluctance. The future Patriarch is brought 
to Cairo, loaded with chains and strictly guarded, as if to 
prevent the possibility of escape. 

According to the Arian tradition, the Bishops were assem- 
bled in great numbers, when Athanasius suddenly appeared 
late in the evening, secured two of the Bishops within the 
church of S. Dionysius, barricaded the building against the 
majority outside, and so, in spite of their remonstrances, and 
even anathemas, was consecrated ; and afterwards, as if by 
a letter from the municipality of Alexandria, procured the 
Imperial confirmation of the act. 2 The extraordinary and 
mysterious circumstances, which on any hypothesis attended 
the appointment of Athanasius, may account for the varia- 
tions in the history. 

Alexandria had already numbered many famous theolo- 
gians in her catechetical school, but, with the exception 
perhaps of Dionysius, Athanasius was her first distinguished 
Bishop, the first who in power and character was worthy of 
the situation. 

The see of Alexandria was then the most important in the 



1 ' Nominabant ' is the word used by- 
Jerome. This, though it does not con- 
tradict, does not necessarily imply the 
more detailed account which Eutychius 



gives of the actual imposition of hands 
and blessing. 

3 Philost. ii. xi. 



LECT. vii. AS BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA. 



217 



whole Church. Alexandria, till the rise of Constantinople, 
The church was the most powerful city in the East. The 

and See of . _ . . .. mi 1 - 1 

Alexandria, prestige of its founder still clung to it. 1 

Egypt, even in the Pagan parts of the Empire, was still 
regarded as the ancient nurse of religious mysteries, and the 
possession of the Temple of Serapis made Alexandria the 
chief sanctuary of Egypt. The Alexandrian Church was 
the only great seat of Christian learning. Its episcopate 
was 'the Evangelical see,' 2 as founded by the Evangelist S. 
Mark. ' The chair of S. Mark ' was, as it still is, the name 
of the Patriarchal throne of Egypt. Its occupant, as we 
have seen, was the only potentate of the time who bore the 
name of 'Pope.' 3 After the Council of Nicsea he became 
the 'Judge of the World,' from his decisions respecting 
the celebration of Easter; 4 and the obedience paid to his 
judgment in all matters of learning, secular and sacred, al- 
most equalled that paid in later days to the ecclesiastical 
authority of the Popes of the West. The 'head of the 
'Alexandrian Church,' says Gregory Nazianzen, 5 'is the 
* head of the world.' 

In his own province his jurisdiction was even more 
extensive than that of the Roman Pontiff. The Episcopate 
of Egypt, which had but a doubtful existence in early times, 
always remained subordinate to the Alexandrian Patriarch, 
beyond what was the case in any Church of the West. Not 
only did he consecrate all the Bishops throughout his diocese, 
but no other Bishop had an independent power of ordination. 
The Egyptian Bishops at Chalcedon protested with tears and 
cries, that, till a Patriarch was given them, they were power- 
less to do anything commanded by the Council. 6 

In civil affairs the chief of the Alexandrian Church carried 
himself almost like a sovereign prince. ' At a distance from 
' court, and at the head of an immense capital, the Patri. 

1 Julian, Ep. 51. Comp. Sharpe's 5 Lecture III. 
Egypt, c. 16. * Neale, i. 113. 

2 Neale's History of Alexandrian 8 Orat. 21. 
Church, i. 6. • Neale, i. in, 112. 



218 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



4 arch of Alexandria had gradually usurped the state and 
< authority of a civil magistrate, . . . and the Prefects of 
* Egypt were awed or provoked by the Imperial power of 
'these Christian Pontiffs.' 1 

Conversion Not only in name and office, however, but in 
of Abyssinia. f act> Athanasius was the representative of the 
Egyptian Church. 

i. In his Pontificate the Church of Alexandria received 
its only important accession. A traveller presented himself 
from the distant and then almost unknown Abyssinia. His 
story was simple and touching. It was one of the earliest 
instances of a Christian mission following in the wake of 
scientific discovery. A philosopher of Tyre, Moripius by 
name, had embarked on a voyage of investigation down the 
Red Sea. He had taken with him two children, relations 
of his own, to teach on the journey. On his return the 
vessel touched for water at a port of Ethiopia. The savage 
inhabitants attacked them and massacred all the crew. The 
two boys, Frumentius and Edesius, faithful to the purpose 
for which they had been brought, were sitting under a tree 
by the sea- shore, learning their lessons. The savages were 
touched by the sight, and took them to the king of the coun- 
try, where they gradually rose into his confidence and that 
of his widow, as the instructors of his son. When the 
prince came of age, the two Christians returned. But Fru- 
mentius (like an earlier Livingstone) determined to bring 
news of this opening for Christianity to the great centre of 
Christian civilisation, unfolded his tidings to Athanasius, and 
then, layman and stranger as he was, was at once consecrated 
to the episcopate. 

He returned, and under his new name of Salama became 
the founder of the Church of Abyssinia. 

' Hail him with the voice of joy, 
Sing praises to Salama ; 



1 Gibbon, c. xlvii.; Neale, i. 112 



lect. vii. AS FRIEND OF THE HERMITS 



219 



The door of pity, of mercy, 
And of pleasant grace.' 1 

2. There was another offshoot of the Coptic Church with 
which Athanasius was in the closest relation. Egypt was the 
The Egyp- parent of monachism, and the monks and Athana- 
tian hermits. sms were inseparable allies. In his early youth 
he had been himself for a short time a hermit. In later life 
he poured forth to them the news of the outer world. Of 
Antony, the founder of the monastic system, he was the 
bosom friend and biographer. He had often sought him 
out in the desert waste, and according to the practice still 
pursued in the East, as a mark of deference from an inferior 
to a superior (as in the case of Elisha and Elijah), poured 
water over his hands as he washed. 2 

Antony, though unable to speak Greek, or to read or 
write, 3 entered with the liveliest interest into the theological 
controversies of the young Bishop. In the most critical 
moment of the struggle of Athanasius, he appeared sud- 
denly in Alexandria to give the sanction of his mysterious 
presence. Heathens, as well as Christians, ran to see 'the 
* man of God,' 4 as he was called. Athanasius escorted him 
to the gate of the city as he departed. 

In the next generation the attachment of the monks of 
the desert to the see of Alexandria became a fixed political 
institution, like the armed military orders of the middle ages, 
like the Jesuits in the sixteenth century. But in the time of 
Athanasius, it was the innocent, natural, enthusiastic devo- 
tion of man to man, friend to friend, disciple to teacher, and 
teacher to disciple. Paul, the companion of Antony, wished 
to be buried in the mantle given by Athanasius to Antony, 
in order to assure himself that he had died in communion 
with Athanasius. Ammon, the Egyptian monk, accom- 
panied Athanasius to Rome, and astonished evsry one by 
the eagerness with which, regardless of all the other wonders 

1 Harris, Highlands of Ethiopia, iii. 89. 
a Vit. Ant. Prsf, 3 Vit. Ath. 74, 75. 4 Vit. Ant. 70. 



220 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



of the great city, he ran, like a dervish of the present 
day, to throw himself before the tombs of S. Peter and S. 
Paul. 

In the caves of the hermits, along the banks of the Nile, 
Athanasius was received whenever his residence in the cap- 
ital was rendered insecure. As he approached, and saw the 
innumerable crowds issuing from their cells, he burst forth 
into the prophet's exclamation : ' Who are these that fly as 
' a cloud, and as doves to their cotes ? ' whilst they, with 
thousands of blazing torches, their Abbot leading his ass, 
escorted him to their impregnable retreats. 1 

3. There was yet a third close bond of connection be- 
tween Athanasius and the Coptic Church. The Arian party 
at Alexandria was essentially Greek. The Orthodox party, 
or, as it was called by its enemies, the Sabellian, and after- 
wards the Eutychian, party, was essentially national. £ S. 
'Chrysostom,' as it has been truly said, 'could never have 
' been a Monophysite, nor S. Cyril a Nestorian.' 2 

To this national or Egyptian party belonged the great 
body of the hermits and monks, who, as their names and 
their ignorance of Greek indicate, were genuine Copts. To 
this party belonged the Christian populace of Alexandria. 
Of this party, or rather nation, Athanasius was the repre- 
sentative ; and to him and to his doctrine the nation clung 
with a tenacity which went on increasing with the lapse of 
years. The Imperial Government at Constantinople, with 
its Greek adherents at Alexandria, was gradually set more 
and more at defiance. 

When the Council of Chalcedon condemned what the 
Egyptian Church believed to be a legitimate inference from 
the doctrine of Athanasius, 3 the breach was final. The 



1 Vit. Pachom. (quoted in Vit. Ath., 
Opp. i. p. lxxiv.) 

2 Neale, Alex. Church, i. 36. 

3 In the treatise of Athanasius quoted 
by Cyril (Athan. ii. 1), the single nature 
of Christ is expressly asserted. Its 



genuineness has on this account been 
vehemently questioned, but apparently 
with no other reason against it. (See 
Robertson's History of the Church, i. 
436.) 



lect. vii. AS OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 



221 



adherents of the Council were contemptuously called Syno- 
dites or Imperialists. The Egyptian Church, with its sister 
communions in Syria, gloried in the exclusive title of Ortho- 
dox. 1 Rather than be reconciled to the heterodox adherents 
of the Empire (as it deemed the Greek Church to be), it 
surrendered itself and them into the hands of the Saracens. 
To this day the old feud still continues. Their hatred of the 
Greek Church makes them of all Christian Churches the 
most intolerant of other Christians. They will never inter- 
marry with them. They prefer Mahometanism. The whole 
Nubian Church became Moslem, rather than join the Church 
of Constantinople. 2 

Thus strong was the union of religious and national feel- 
ing which already in his lifetime rallied round Athanasius, 
and assisted in making him formidable to his opponents. 
No fugitive Stuart in the Scottish Highlands could count 
more securely on the loyalty of his subjects, than did Atha- 
nasius in his hiding-places in Egypt count upon the faith- 
fulness and secrecy of his countrymen. Sometimes it was 
the hermits who afforded him shelter in their rocky fast- 
nesses ; sometimes his fellow-townsmen supported him as 
he lay hid in his father's tomb outside the walls of their 
city ; sometimes it was the beautiful Alexandrian maiden, 
who, in her old age, delighted to tell how, when he had sud- 
denly appeared at midnight wrapped in his short tunic and 
red cloak, she had concealed and tended him in her house, 
with provisions and books, till he was able, as suddenly, to 
reappear amongst his astonished friends. 3 His whole course 
was that of an adventurous and wandering prince, rather 
than of a persecuted theologian ; and, when in the brief in- 
tervals of triumph he was enabled to return to his native 
city, his entrance was like that of a Sovereign rather than of 
a Prelate. 

1 See the history of John of Ephe- 3 Palladius, c. 135, 150. Athanasius 

sus, passim. told her that he was directed to her by a 

" Lane's Modern Egyptians, ii. 312, special revelation. See p. 232. 
333 ; Harris's Ethiopia, iii. 68. 



222 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VIL 



One such scene, thoroughly Egyptian in character, is re- 
corded by Gregory Nazianzen, which lingered in the recol- 
lections of all who had seen it, as the most splendid 

Entrance . r . _ ' . , r . 

into Aiexan- spectacle of the age. It seems to have been his 
first return after the death of Constantine. There 
was more than delight ; there was awe, almost amounting to 
consternation, at the greatness of the event. The popula- 
tion of Alexandria poured forth, as was their habit on such 
occasions, not in the indiscriminate confusion of a modern 
populace, but in a certain stateliness of arrangement. Each 
trade and profession kept its own place. The men and 
women, as in Oriental countries, were apart. The children 
formed a mass by themselves. As the mighty stream rolled 
out of the gates, it was (this was the truly Egyptian figure 
that suggested itself) as if the Nile, at the height of its flood, 
scattering fertility as it went, had turned in its course and 
flowed backwards from Alexandria towards the first outpost 
of the city. As now, so then, the usual mode of moving to 
and fro along the roads of Egypt was on asses. Gregory, as 
he describes Athanasius so approaching, is carried into an 
extravagance of comparison and of symbolism. He thinks 
of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem ; he thinks that the 
asses typified the heathen population whom Athanasius had 
loosed from their ignorance. Branches of trees were waved 
aloft ; carpets of all the gayest colours and richest textures 
of Alexandria were spread under his feet. There was a 
long unbroken shout of applause ; thousands of hands 
clapped with delight ; the air was scented with the fragrant 
ointments poured out ; the city at night flashed with illu- 
minations ; public and private entertainments were given in 
every house. In a wild enthusiasm of devotion, women be- 
came nuns, men became hermits ; children entreated their 
parents, parents urged their children, to sacrifice themselves 
to the monastic life. 1 In a still nobler sense of a Christian 
revival, the hungry and the orphans were sheltered and 

1 Greg. Nazianz. 28. 



LECT. VII. 



HIS POPULARITY. 



223 



maintained, and every household by its devotion seemed to 
be transformed into a church. 1 

Long afterwards, when a popular Prefect of Alexandria 
was received with vast enthusiasm, and two bystanders were 
comparing it with all possible demonstrations that they 
could imagine, and the younger had said : ' Even if the 
' Emperor Constantius 2 himself were to come, he could not 

* be so received ; ' the elder replied with a smile, and an 
Egyptian oath : ' Do you call that a wonderful sight ? The 

* only thing to which you ought to compare it is the recep- 

* tion of the great Athanasius.' 

II. This leads us to the second aspect in which we must 
consider the life of Athanasius. It is not merely as the 
Esryptian saint, but as the antagonist of the whole 

His contests r _ _ . 

with the Church and Empire of the time, that his career 
mperors. ^ as k een £ nves ted with such singular interest ; as 
that, of all the saints of the early Church, he is the only one 
who has actually kindled the cold and critical pages of 
Gibbon into a fire of enthusiasm. 

He had, as we have seen, the support of his own party 
and his own nation behind him. Still it is evident that he 
was one of those strong characters who render to others a 
firmer support than others can ever render to them. 

In the Nicene Council 3 he had almost stood alone 
against the majority, which, in spite of his remonstrances, 
Hisisoia- received the Melitians. In the events which 
tion. occupied the rest of his life, he was almost 
the only high ecclesiastic who stood firm against the Arians. 
We must bear in mind how completely the Arian party 
had taken possession of the court, the dignities, even the 
Councils, of the time. Such rapid revolutions in the de- 
cline and rise of theological parties in royal or popular 
favour are amongst the most usual phenomena of all eccle- 



1 Ath. Hist. Arian. § 25. 

* Greg. Nazianz. 29. This expression shows that the return spoken of was that 
after Constantine's death. 3 See Lecture V. p. 152. 



224 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



siastical history. And it is by its solitary protest against 
subservience to the religious fashion of the age, that the 
life of Athanasius has acquired a proverbial significance, 
which cannot be too often impressed on theological 
students. ' Scripture,' it has been well said, 'nowhere leads 

* us to suppose that the circumstance of all men speaking 

* well of us is any ground for supposing that we are accept- 
' able in the sight of God. The jealousy or fear of some, 

* the reticence of others, the terrorism of a few, have really 
' nothing to do with the questions at issue in theological 

* controversy. They cannot have the slightest influence on 
' the meaning of words, or on the truth of facts. There is a 
i deeper work for theologians, which is not dependent on 

* the opinions of men, and which can hardly expect to win 
1 much popular favour, so far as it runs counter to the 
1 feelings of religious parties. But he who bears a part in it 
' may feel a confidence which no popular caresses or re- 
' ligious sympathy could inspire, that he has, by a Divine 

* help, been enabled to plant his foot somewhere beyond 
' the waves of time.' 1 

This, whether we agree or whether we disagree with the 
objects of Athanasius, is the permanent lesson which his 
life teaches. It is the same as that which we are taught by 
the life of Elijah in the history of the Jewish Church, and 
by the lives of some of the early Reformers in the Christian 
Church. It is the special point which Hooker 2 has brought 
out in the splendid passage which, though well known, I 
cannot forbear to quote, as giving in a short compass the 
events of the period in the life of Athanasius during which 
the doctrine of the Arians had become the religion of the 
Government and of the Church: — 

' Athanasius, by the space of forty-six years, from the 
4 time of his consecration till the last hour of his life in this 



1 This striking passage from the 
Essay of Professor Jowett, on the Inter- 
pretation of Scripture, was written, I 
believe, in allusion to the lamented 



preacher and theologian, Mr. Robertson 
of Brighton. 

2 Eccl. Pol. v. 42. 



lect. vii. AGAINST THE WORLD. 225 

' world, they never suffered to enjoy the comfort of a peace- 

* able day. The heart of Constantine stolen from him ; 

* Constantius his scourge and torment by all the ways that 
1 malice, armed with sovereign authority, could devise and 

* use ; under Julian no rest given him ; and in the days of 
' Valens as little. Crimes there were laid to his charge 
£ many. . . . His judges were evermore the selfsame men 

* by whom his accusers were suborned. . . . Those Bishops 

* and Prelates who should have counted his cause theirs 
' . . . . were sure by bewraying their affection towards him 
' to bring upon themselves those maledictions whereby, if 
1 they would not be drawn to seem his adversaries, yet 
' others should be taught how unsafe it was to continue his 
' friends. Whereupon it came to pass in the end that (very 
1 few excepted) all became subject to the sway of time ; 

* saving only that some fell away sooner, some later ; . . . 
4 some were leaders in the host, . . . and the rest . . . 

* either yielding through fear, or brought under with penury, 

* or by flattery ensnared, or else beguiled through simplicity, 
4 which is the fairest excuse that well may be made for 
4 them. . . . Such was the stream of those times that all 
4 men gave place unto it . . . Only of Athanasius there 
4 was nothing observed through that long tragedy, other 
4 than such as very well became a wise man to do, and a 
4 righteous to suffer. So that this was the plain condition 
4 of those times ; the whole world against Athanasius, and 

* Athanasius against it. Half a hundred years spent in 

* doubtful trial, which of the two in the end would prevail ; 
4 the side which had all, or else the part which had no 

* friend but God and death ; the one a defender of his 

* innocency, the other a finisher of his troubles.' It is 
probably from the Latin version of this celebrated passage 
that we derive the proverb, Athanasius contra mundum ; a 
proverb which, as I have observed on other occasions, well 
sets forth the claims of individual, private, solitary judg- 
ment, against the claims of general authority as set forth in 

Q 



226 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



the other equally well-known maxim, Quod semper, quod 
ubique, quod ab omnibus. It is a proverb which, though few 
are worthy to claim for themselves, yet all may well take to 
heart as a warning against confounding popularity with 
truth, or isolation with heresy, or temporary depression with 
lasting defeat, 

The contest successively waged with Constantine, Con- 
stantius, Julian, and Valens, has been briefly and powerfully 
told by Gibbon, and elaborately worked out by Tillemont. 
Its details are as tedious and complicated, as its general 
interest is exciting and instructive. 

But there are a few points which may be selected as 
characteristic either of the man or the age. 

1. His contest with the Imperial power, and the long 
Contest with stru SS^ es which it cos t the successive Emperors 
the Em- to cope with him, are proofs of the freedom and 

independence of the Christian Church, in the 
midst of the general decay of those qualities in all the other 
institutions of the Empire. 

The general effect of this new principle 1 of life in insti- 
tutions of the Church has been already pointed out ; but of 
individual instances of this new and disturbing force, which 
would never again let the world subside into its dull stag- 
nation and inaction, Athanasius is the first grand example. 
The 'meddling demagogue,' 2 'the odious Athanasius,' 3 
■ the audacious conspirator elated by his characteristic rash- 
' ness,' 4 are the expressions by which Julian designates his 
rival in Egypt. 'Although,' says Gibbon, 'his mind was 
' tainted by the contagion of fanaticism. Athanasius dis- 
' played a superiority of character and abilities which would 
' have fitted him far better than the degenerate sons of 
' Constantine for the government of a great monarchy.' 5 

2. The contest, however, did not resemble those which 
in the middle ages set the spiritual against the civil authority. 



1 See Lecture II. p. 65. 
4 Ibid. 26. 



2 Julian, Ep. 51. s Ibid. 6. 

" Decline and Fall, iii. 355. 



LECT. VII. 



AGAINST THE WORLD. 



227 



In this respect Athanasius strictly preserves the character 
of the Oriental hierarchy, 1 which I have more 

Personal not , , 

ecclesiastical than once noticed. The spiritual and the secu- 
opposition. ^ were hardly ever, as such, directly opposed. 2 
During the whole of the first part of the quarrel, nothing 
can exceed the deference of Athanasius to the Imperial 
authority ; and the subsequent vehemence of his language 
is personal rather than official. The accusations against 
him were also personal. It was not for heresy or orthodoxy 
that he was convened before the Council of Tyre, but for 
the murder of Arsenius, for breaking a sacred chalice, for 
imposing a tax on sacred vestments, for conspiring against 
the Emperor, for consecrating a church without the Em- 
peror's permission, for preventing the exportation of corn 
from Alexandria (a purely Egyptian charge) ; for procuring 
his reinstatement from an Imperial decree, after his de- 
position by a Council ; for refusing to leave Alexandria 
without an express command from the Emperor ; for corre- 
sponding with the rebel chief Magnentius. All of these 
charges were repudiated by Athanasius ; and of all, in the 
judgment of posterity as well as of his own time, he has 
been acquitted, though in the last century Sir Isaac Newton 
condescended to use his great intellect in reviving them, for 
the purpose of undermining the character of a theological 
opponent. True or false, however, they were such as had 
no ecclesiastical significance, except from the person against 
whom they were brought. 

3. But though Athanasius was not formally attacked for 
heresy, and was therefore not, technically speaking, a suf- 
Arian f erer f° r tne sa ^ e °f ms religious creed, yet there 
attacks. can j-^ n0 d 0UD t that the annoyances and dangers 
to which he was exposed originated in theological enmity, 
and thus furnish the first signal instance of the strange sight 

1 See Lectures I., X., XI. him by Julian of baptising Alexandrian 

2 The nearest approach to such a ladies, Ep. 6. 
collision, is the charge brought against 

Q 2 



228 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



of Christians persecuting Christians. We can hardly suppose 
that his opponents really believed him to be guilty of the 
murder of Arsenius, or of the detention of the Egyptian 
corn. But these were convenient blinds for a theological 
hostility which they dared not openly avow. And it is im- 
portant to observe that this wide persecution arose, not from 
the Orthodox against the heretics, but from the heretics 
against the Orthodox. This is a sample of what has often 
occurred since. We cannot deny or palliate the intolerance 
of established Churches, but we must never forget that it 
has been shared to the fullest extent by the intolerance of 
sects and heresies of every kind. Indeed, wherever it 
exists, it is a proof that sectarianism has eaten its way into 
the vitals of the Church itself. WTiatever provocations had 
been given by the Orthodox party were far surpassed by the 
violence and unrelenting bitterness of the Arians. A single 
scene will suffice, as indicating at once the character of 
Athanasius and of the persecutions. He had been urged 
to retire from Alexandria ; but with the reverential obedi- 
ence which, as we have seen, he kept up, at least in appear- 
ance, for the Imperial authority, he refused to leave his post 
without an express warrant from the Emperor. What his 
enemies could not effect by law, they determined to effect 
by violence. A mob has, in all ages and amongst all shades 
of ecclesiastical party, been a ready instrument for theo- 
logical agitators against their opponents. Of all mobs the 
Alexandrian, whether heathen or Christian, was the most 
terrible. On this occasion it was united with the soldiers. 
The chief of the police was present, but apparently took no 
part in restraining the outrages. 1 

On the night of Thursday the 9th of February, 358, 
Attack on Athanasius with his congregation was, after the 
of^The?- manner °f ^e Coptic Church, keeping vigil through 
nas. the whole night in the Church of S. Theonas 

in preparation for the Eucharist of the following day. 

1 Protest of the Alexandrians, § 5. 



LRCT. VII. 



AGAINST THE WORLD. 



229 



Suddenly, at midnight, 1 there was a tumult without. The 
church, 2 which was of unusual size, was surrounded with 
armed men. 3 The presence of mind for which he was 
famous did not desert the Bishop. Behind the altar was 
the Episcopal throne. On this he took his sert, and ordered 
his attendant deacon to read the 136th Psalm, which has 
for every verse the response, £ For His mercy endureth for 
ever.' It was while these responses were being thundered 
forth by the congregation, that the doors burst open, and 
the Imperial general and notary entered at the head of the 
soldiers. The soldiers were for a moment terror-struck by 
the chanting of the Psalm. 4 But as they pressed forward a 
shower of arrows flew through the church. The swords 
flashed in the light of the sacred torches, the din of their 
shouts mingled with the rattle of their arms. The wounded 
fell one upon another, and were trampled down ; the nuns 
were seized and stripped ; the church was plundered. 
Through this mass of horrors, the two Imperial officers and 
their attendants passed on to the screen 5 before the altar. 
Athanasius had refused to go till most of the congregation 
had retired, but now he was swept away in the crowd. 

In his own version 6 of the story, he is at a loss to 
account for his escape. But his diminutive figure may well 
have passed unseen ; and we learn, besides, that he was 
actually carried out in a swoon, 7 which sufficiently explains 
his own ignorance of the means of his deliverance. The 
church was piled with dead, and the floor was strewn with 
the swords and arrows of the soldiers. He vanished, no 
one knew whither, into the darkness of the winter night. 

This scene well introduces us to the consideration of 
His general another and more general side of the character 
character. 0 f Athanasius. The qualities that most forcibly 
struck his contemporaries seem rather to have been the 



1 Protest, § 3. * Apol. Const. § 19. 3 Protest, § 3. 

* Soc. ii. x. 6 Protest, § 3. 

* De Fuga, 24. 7 Ibid. 4. , 



230 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



readiness 1 and versatility of his gifts. An Oxford poet, in 
the ' Lyra Apostolica ' has sung of 

4 The royal-hearted Athanase, 
With Paul's own mantle blest.' 

Whatever may have been the intention of this comparison, 
it is certain that there was a resemblance between the flexi- 
His versa- bility of Athanasius and the many-sided character 
tiiity. 0 f t h e Apostle whose boast it was to have ' made 
' himself all things to all men.' None such had occurred 
before, and none such occurred again till the time of Augus- 
tine, perhaps not till the time of Francis Xavier. 

The hyperbolical language of Gregory Nazianzen shows 
the deep impression made by this, as it seemed, rare pecu- 
liarity. * He was,' so Gregory describes him, 2 ' a just 
4 distributor of praise and blame, according as the case 

* might be ; awakening the sluggish, repressing enthusiasm ; 

* equally alert in prevention or in cure ; single in his aims, 
c ?nanifold in his modes of government ; wise in his speech, 

* still wiser in his intentions ; on a level with the most ordi- 

* nary men, yet rising to the height of the most speculative ; 
1 uniting in himself (the expression is worth preserving as 
one that could only have been used in that transitional state 
between heathenism and Christianity which was described 
in my last Lecture) 'the various attributes of all the heathen 

* gods. Hospitable, like [Jupiter] Philoxenius ; listening 
4 to suppliants, like [Jupiter] Ikesius ; averting evils, like 
[Apollo] Apotropasus ; binding men together, like [Jupiter] 
6 Zygius ; pure, like [Pan] Parthenius ; a peacemaker, like 

* [Jupiter] Irenaeus ; a reconciler, like [Jupiter] Diallacterius ; 

* a conductor to the shades below, like [Hermes] Pompaeus. > 
H" h our Amongst the traits which may be especially 

' selected, as bringing this part of his character 
before us, and also as being too much overlooked in the 



1 Julian, Ep. 51 : evTpi\ttcu 



s Orat. c. 36 



LECT. VII. 



HIS CHARACTER. 



231 



popular notions of him, the first is the remarkable quickness 
and humour of his address. 

Take his clever retort to Constantius, who, at the instiga- 
tion of his Arian persecutors, had asked him to open a church 
for the Arians at Alexandria. * I will grant a church to the 
' heretics at Alexandria, as soon as you grant a church to the 

* Orthodox at Antioch.' It is just the one retort, obvious 
indeed, but unanswerable, that may always be made to an in- 
tolerant faction. They always shrink from the test 

Take again the well- sustained and pointed irony of the 
scene in the Council of Tyre, where he produces the man 
whom he is accused of having murdered, and whose right 
hand he is supposed to have cut off. The muffled figure is 
introduced ; he shows the face first, and asks all round : 4 Is 
'this Arsenius, whom I murdered?' He draws out from 
behind the cloak, first one hand, and then the other : ' Let 

* no one now ask for a third ; for two hands, and two only, 
'has every human being received from the Creator of all 

* things.' It has been often said that a man who can pro- 
voke or enjoy a laugh is sure to succeed with his fellow- 
creatures. We cannot doubt that such was Athanasius. 1 

Not less efficacious is the power of making use of a laugh 
or a jest, instead of serious arguments. The grave Epiphanius 
ventured one day to ask Athanasius what he thought of the 
opinions of his dangerous supporter, the heretic Marcellus. 
Athanasius returned no answer ; but a significant smile broke 
out over his whole countenance. 2 Epiphanius had sufficient 
humour to perceive that this meant ' Marcellus has had a 
« narrow escape.' 

So, again, when he was asked his opinion on the 
common practice of death-bed baptisms, he replied with an 
apologue which admitted of no rejoinder. ' An angel once 
< said to my great predecessor : " Peter [the bishop of the see 
' " before Alexander], why do you send me these sacks [these 



1 Theod. i. 30. <ra>7rov /atiSidaae vnefyiji/e. See Lect 

8 Epiph. Hser. lxii. 4 •. <5td tou npo- III. 



232 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



1 " wind-bags] carefully sealed up, with nothing whatever 
inside?"' 1 

Another trait makes itself felt in the wide-spread belief 
entertained that he was the great magician of his age. It 
His magical was founded no doubt on his rapid mysterious 
reputation. m0V ements, his presence of mind, his prophetic 
anticipations ; to which must be added a humorous pleasure 
in playing with the fears and superstitions which these quali- 
ties engendered. 

The Emperor Constantine is entering Constantinople in 
state. A small figure darts across his path in the middle of 
the square, and stops his horse. The Emperor, thunder- 
struck, tries to pass on ; he cannot guess who the petitioner 
can be. It is Athanasius, who comes to insist on justice, 
when thought to be leagues away before the Council of 
Tyre. 

The Alexandrian Church is dismayed by the accession 
of Julian. But Athanasius is unmoved ; he looks into the 
future ; he sees through the hollowness of the reaction. 
' It is but a little cloud,' he says, ' that will soon pass away.' 

He is pursued by his enemies up the Nile. They meet a 
boat descending the stream. They hail it with a shout 2 so 
familiar to Egyptian travellers on the great river : 4 Where 
'is Athanasius?' ' Not very far off,' is the answer. The 
wind carries on the pursuers ; the current carries down the 
pursued. It was Athanasius, who, hearing of their approach, 
took advantage of a bend in the stream, to turn, and meet, 
and mislead, and escape them thus. 

He is passing through one of the squares of Alexandria. 
The heathen mob are standing around; a crow flies over his 
head. They, partly in jest, partly in earnest, ask him to tell 
them what its croaking meant. He laughs in his sleeve, and 
answers : ' Do you not hear ? It says Cras, Cras, which is 
1 in Latin " to-morrow," which means that tomorrow some- 



1 Tillemont, Athan. c. 117. 

a Soc. iii. 14. Sozomen makes this a divine intimation. 



LECT. VII. 



AS A MAGICIAN. 



233 



1 thing untoward will befall you : for to-morrow your Pagan 
' festival will be suppressed by an Imperial decree.' So it 
came to pass, and few would care to ask how he really had 
gained the information. 1 

Of all these incidents the secret springs are to us suffici- 
ently clear ; his ubiquitous activity, his innumerable sources 
of knowledge, his acute observation. But whilst to his 
friends they seemed to imply supernatural aid, to his ene- 
mies they suggested suspicions of the blackest witchcraft. 
When the murdered man with both his hands was produced 
alive, there were those who maintained that it was an optical 
illusion, caused by the glamour which Athanasius had cast 
over the Council. Even an enlightened Pagan was con- 
vinced that his knowledge of the future was derived from arts 
of divination, and from the auguries of birds. 2 And this be- 
lief of the Pagans and heretics has curiously forced itself back 
into the Church. Whatever may be thought of the real ori- 
gin of the legend of S. George the martyr of Cappadocia, 
there can be no doubt that it has been incorporated with an 
Arian legend of the Arian George, Bishop of Alexandria, 
murdered by the Alexandrian mob ; and that from this union 
has sprung the story in its present popular form. In this 
story, the contest of S. George is for the Empress Alexandra 
(in whom we can hardly fail to see the type of the Alexan- 
drian Church), and his enemy is the magician Athanasius. 3 
As time rolls on, and the legend grows in dimensions, 
George becomes the champion on his steed, rescuing the 
Egyptian princess, and Athanasius the wizard sinks into the 
prostrate dragon ; and, in the popular representations of 
the story, still acted by Christmas mummers in the North of 
England, the transformation is into a lower form still ; and 
the only image which Cheshire peasants have seen of Atha- 
nasius is the quaint and questionable figure who appears 



1 Soz. iv. 10. addition that the magician was a friend 

* Ammianus, xv. 7. of Magnentius identifies him beyond any 

a Acta SS., April 23, 120 — 123. The doubt with Athanasius. See p. 227. 



234 



ATHANASIUS. lect. vh. 



under the name and in the guise of Beelzebub. It is the 
last expiring trace of the revenge of the Arians on their great 
adversary. 

III. From the active life of Athanasius we pass to his 
The diief more speculative aspect, as the chief theologian of 
of the time, the age, in one sense of all ages. 

It may indeed be doubted whether, in his own age, there 
was not one of still higher authority in the theological world, 
Hosius of Cordova. But his was one of those brilliant repu- 
tations which have expired with the life of the holder ; whereas 
that of Athanasius grew in the next generation to the height 
that secured for him finally the title of 'great,' which Hosius 
enjoyed only during his lifetime. ' Whenever you meet 
4 with a sentence of Athanasius,' was the saying of the sixth 
century, ' and have not paper at hand, write it down upon 
'your clothes.' 

i. He was one of the few theologians whose fame was 
common both to East and West. What he was in the East 
. , . I need not here further specify. But he left his 

in the West . . , Tir 11 r 1 1 

as well as in footprint in the West also, to a degree far beyond 
e as ' what is the case with any other Eastern Father. 
He visited Rome and Treves. He learned Latin to con- 
verse with the Roman Bishop. He introduced to the 
Romans the strange hermits from Egypt. He brought 
monasticism into Germany. His very remains were gradu- 
ally removed westward, from Alexandria 1 to Constantinople, 
to Venice, to France, to Spain. 

The close argumentative style of his writings was better 
calculated to win the attention of the Western theologians 2 
than the more rhetorical and imaginative works of most of 
his countrymen ; and of this harmony in thought, as well as 
of the deep impression left by his character in Western 
Christendom, the most remarkable proof is the groundless 
but widely spread connection of his name with the hymn, 
'Quicunque vult.' The learned world is now fully aware 

1 Acta SS., M^y 2, i. 35, 3 See Lecture I. p. 21. 



LECT. VII. 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 



235 



that it is of French or Spanish origin, probably not earlier 
Athanasian tnan tne e ig ntn century. It not only is based on 
Creed. phrases which to Athanasius were unknown or un- 
acceptable, but it distinctly and from the first asserted the 
doctrine of the Double Procession of the Spirit, which never 
occurs in the writings of Athanasius, 1 and which, in all pro- 
bability he would have repudiated with his Oriental brethren 
of later times. But its partial resemblance to his style, 
and the assumption of his name, have given it an immense 
support. 

2. He was the Father of all Theology, in a more precise 
sense than either as the oracle of the ancient Churches, or 
The founder ^ °f tne chief theological Creed of the 

of ortho- East. He was the founder of Orthodoxy. 2 Before 
his time, and before the settlement of the Nicene 
Creed, in which he took so large a part, it might be said 
that the idea of an Orthodox doctrine, in the modern sense 
of the word, was almost unknown. Opinions were too fluc- 
tuating, too simple, too mixed, to admit of it. It is a word, 
even to this day, of doubtful repute. No one likes to be 
called 1 heretical,' but neither is it a term of unmixed eulogy 
to be called 'orthodox.' It is a term which implies, to a 
certain extent, deadness of feeling ; at times, rancorous ani- 
mosity, narrowness, fixedness, perhaps even hardness, of 
intellect. In these respects its great founder cannot be said 
to be altogether free from the reproach cast on his followers 
in the same line. His elaborate expositions of doctrine 



1 The nearest approach to the Double 
Procession in the writings of Athanasius 
is in Ep. ad Serapion. i. 20. On the 
other hand, the Single Procession was 
maintained as against the doctrine of 
the creation of the Spirit. (Neander, 
iv. 106—109.) See Lecture I. That a 
chief motive for cherishing the Athana- 
sian Creed in the Latin Church was its 
assertion of the Double Procession, is 
evident from 'the ancient testimonies' 
cited by Water land (iv. 150), which 
mostly turn on this very point, A.D. 809 



to 1439. It has, indeed, in later times 
found its way into the Psalters both of 
Greece and Russia, though not of the 
remoter East. But it has never been 
recognised as an Eastern Creed, and the 
clause for which it was so highly valued 
in the West has been omitted. (Renau- 
dot, Hist. Patr. Alex. 98.) Salig. (De 
Eutych. ante Eutych. 131). See an ex- 
haustive Essay on the subject in Mac- 
millan's Magazine, November, 1867. 

' l rov Trarpb? TTJ? dp0o2o£i&s. Epiph. 
Haer. box, c. 2. 



236 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



sufficiently exemplify the minuteness of argument which 
perhaps may have been the cause of his being regarded as 
TT . , a special leader or jurisconsult. 1 His invectives 

His pole- . J . 

mkaive- against the Anans prove how far even a heroic 
soul can be betrayed by party spirit and the vio- 
lence of the times. Amongst his favourite epithets for them 
are : ' Devils, Antichrists, maniacs, Jews, polytheists, athe- 
ists, dogs, wolves, lions, hares, chameleons, hydras, eels, 
'cuttlefish, gnats, beetles, leeches.' 2 There may be cases 
where such language is justifiable ; but, as a general rule? 
and with all respect for him who uses them, this style of 
controversy can be mentioned as a warning only, not as an 
example. 

But the zeal of Athanasius for Orthodoxy, if it hurried 
him at times beyond the limits of Christian moderation in 
Compared language, rarely, so far as we know, tempted him 
with Cyril. j nt0 unchristian violence in deeds. We can here 
speak with the more certainty from the contrast which his 
life presents with that of another great prelate of the next 
generation. Just as, in the history of our own Church, 
Anselm's virtues can be appreciated only by comparison 
with Becket, or Ken's by comparison with Sancroft ; so 
Athanasius, in the fourth century, may be fairly judged in 
the light of his own successor, Cyril of Alexandria, in the 
fifth. The bribery which is certainly traced to Cyril is at 
least doubtful in Athanasius. 3 There is good reason to ac- 
quit Athanasius of any share in the murder of George ; 4 
but Cyril was suspected, 5 even by the Orthodox, of com- 
plicity in the murder of Hypatia. Cyril was active in pro - 
curing the cruel banishment of the blameless Nestorius ; 
Athanasius was concerned in no persecutions except those in 



1 Sulp. Sev. ii. 390 ; Gibbon, c. 22. 

B See these epithets collected in a 
note to Athanasius's Historical Treatises 
(Newman's ed. ii. 34). 

The charge is only found in Philo- 
storgius, iii. 12. 



4 Philost. vii. 2. The silence of 
Julian acquits him. 

s The direct charge of Damascius is 
confirmed by the ominous hint of So- 
crates, vii. 15. See Valesius ad h. 1. 



LECT. VII. 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 



237 



which he himself suffered, It was a maxim of Athana- 
sius that * the duty of Orthodoxy is not to compel but to 
' persuade belief ; ' Cyril carried his measures by placing 
himself at the head of bands of ferocious ruffians, 1 and by 
canonising the assassin. No graver reproach rests on the 
memory of Athanasius than that of being a powerful magi- 
cian ; Cyril's death suggested to one who has left his feelings 
on record the reflection that ' at last the reproach of Israel 

* was taken away ; that he was gone to vex the inhabitants 

* of the world below with his endless dogmatism : let every 
' one throw a stone upon his grave, lest perchance he should 
1 make even hell too hot to hold him, 2 and return to earth.' 
But the excellence of Athanasius, like that of every theo- 
logian, must be measured not by his attack upon error, but 
by his defence of truth. Judged, indeed, by the hard and 
narrow standard of modern times, his teaching would be pro- 
nounced ' lamentably defective.' But it is his rare merit, or 
his rare good fortune, that the centre of his theology was the 
„. - . doctrine of the Incarnation. His earliest treatise 

His defence 

of the incar- is on that special subject, before it had become 
embroiled in the Arian controversy, and it con- 
tains his calm statement of the doctrine, and its practical 
effects on the world, unembittered by the polemics of his 
middle life. And though the forms both of the errors which 
he opposed and of the truths which he maintained, have 
varied in later times, it may be worth while briefly to point 
out how his teaching reaches far beyond his own time, and 
extends into those manifold applications which form one of 
the best tests of truth. 

a) I have before spoken of the polytheistic tendencies of 
which Arianism was the partial development. The Unity of 
the Father and the Son, which Athanasius maintained against 
these tendencies, is still needed as the basis of sound repre- 



1 Soc. vii. 13, 14. disputed, but mainly on the supposed 

* Theod. Ep. 180. The genuineness improbability that Theodoret should so 
of the Epistle and its intention have been have designated Cyril. 



238 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



sentations of the Divine acts. It is a standing witness, that 
in Scripture and theology, no less than in philosophy and 
conscience, there is a marked repugnance to the forced op- 
positions between the justice of the Father and the mercy 
of the Son, which run through the popular systems of the 
Redemption adopted since the Reformation. Amongst the 
various figures which Athanasius uses to express his view, 
one is that of 'Satisfaction.' But this is introduced inci- 
dentally and in entire subordination to the primary truth, 
that the Redemption flowed from the Indivisible Love of the 
Father and the Son alike, and that its object was the restora- 
tion of man to union with God. 

b) It was a favourite position of Arius 1 that the finite 
mind of man could never comprehend the Infinity of God. 
Such notions have been sometimes pushed to a still further 
development in the form of representing the Divine morality 
as altogether different from the human. But it is a profound 
remark of a gifted member of the Eastern Church, that one 
grand result of the Nicene decision was the reassertion of 
the moral nature, the moral perfection, of the Divinity. 2 In 
the Athanasian declaration that only through the image of 
perfect humanity can perfect Divinity be made known to us, 
is the true antidote to any such erroneous or sceptical repre- 
sentations of the Divine character. 

c) The Athanasian doctrine of the Divine relations pos- 
sesses an element of permanence shared by no other theories 
of that time. 3 It recognises only two intelligences in the 
world, God and man. These are two simple ideas which 
will last as long as the human race itself. But the Arian 
theories introduced into the subject the hypothesis of beings 
intervening between the Divine and human, such as belong 



1 According to Philostorgius (ii. 3), 
'Arius everywhere asserted that God 
was unknown, incomprehensible, and in- 
conceivable, not onlv by men, but by the 
only-begotten Son Himself But in this 
error the greater part of his followers 



joined.' Compare to the same effect 
Eusebius, Eccl. Theol. i. 12. 

2 Quelques Mots (1857), 3 2 « 69, 79. 

3 I am indebted for this remark to 
the Rev. J. B. Mozley. 



LECT. VII. 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 



239 



to the transitory and dubious province which lies between 
Religion and Mythology. If the controversy had ended by 
fixing in the centre of the Christian Creed a being like the 
angels or JEons of the early heretics, or the superhuman 
saints of the Latin Church, the departure from the simplicity 
and sobriety of Christian faith would have been far wider 
than can be the cause in any true statement of the doctrine 
of Athanasius. 

d) The importance ascribed by Athanasius to the doc- 
trine of the Incarnation, almost requires ' the incommunic- 
' able preeminence ' 1 which the most philosophical theolo- 
gians, as well as the simplest believers, have always assigned 
to the Four Gospels above all other portions of the sacred 
volume. This preeminence has often been disputed by the 
sectarian or the half- informed polemics of modern times. 
But it is not less necessary to Athanasian theology, than it is 
to a right adjustment of the proportions of Scripture. 

3. There was a still 'more excellent way' of Orthodoxy 
in which Athanasius was conspicuous. He had firmly 
His discri- grasped the idea that it was a Christian duty to 
mmation. reconc ii e imaginary differences, and distinguish 
the essential and unessential. 'Whilst,' says Gregory Na- 
zianzen, 'he was a fire which burns away as a forest the 

* noxious vegetation, and a sword which cuts up evil by the 

* roots, so he was a husbandman's winnowing-fan to separate 

* the light chaff from the solid grain of the wheat. Whilst 
' he went along with the sword of the conqueror, he was also 
1 the breath of the quickening spirit' 2 

Four signal instances of his discriminating judgment are 
recorded : 

a) He healed the jealousies of the two monastic orders 
the monks (or Coenobites) and the hermits, which threatened 
to break up the Eastern Church, as the quarrels of the Fran- 
ciscans and Dominicans in later times disturbed the tran- 



' Remains of Alexander Knox, ii. Dr. Ogilvie's Bampton Lectures, p. 230. 
335 ; an admirable passage, quoted in 2 Orat. 21, c. 7. 



240 ATHANASIUS. lect. vtti 

quillity of the Western Church ; the one representing the 
in the more purely devotional, the other the more in- 
quarreis tellectual, form of religion. He lived equally with 

with the , . . i 11 r- i , ■ 

monks and both ; sometimes m the cell of the contemplative 
ermi s ' anchorite, sometimes in the community of the more 
social convent. Here, as elsewhere (I again quote the strong 
language of Gregory), ' he showed himself the reconciler and 
4 mediator of the age, imitating Him who by His own blood 
' set at peace those who had parted asunder ; showing (with 

* the hermits) that religion was able to become philosophical, 

* and (with the monks) that philosophy stood in need of the 
4 guidance of religion.' 1 

b) Both in discipline and in doctrine he gave proof that 
he was willing to sacrifice the letter to the spirit. A solemn 
in clerical decree of the Nicene Council, one of the few still 
discipline, observed in the West, required the presence of 
three Bishops for Episcopal consecration, and the usage of 
the Egyptian Church required that all such appointments 
should take place at Alexandria. When a young active lay- 
man had been consecrated by a single Bishop and without 
consulting the see of Alexandria, Athanasius not only ac- 
quiesced in the appointment, though 'against all the rules 

* received from antiquity,' but even 4 bent to the necessities 
4 of the time,' and promoted him to the metropolitan see of 
the province. 2 

c) In doctrine he gave a yet more startling proof of this 
same disposition. If there was any one object which he 
in the use might seem to have at heart more than any other, 
oFthe'iKf- it was tne w01 "d Homoousion? which he had been 
msousion. t h e m eans of introducing into the .Council of Ni- 
caea. The truth which he believed to be expressed by the 
word he did indeed defend through life and death. But the 
word itself he was willing to waive, when he found that it 
was misunderstood. 4 We may think, with Bishop Kaye, that 



1 Orat. 21. c. 19. 

* See Synesius, Ep. 67. 



3 See Lecture IV. 
* Ath. de Syn. 41. 



LECT. VII. 



AS A THEOLOGIAN. 



241 



he might have come earlier to this conclusion. But that he 
should have come to it at all, shows that he possessed a rare 
qualification of a great theologian. It is an edifying instance 
of the power of appreciating identity of doctrine under 
different, or even opposite, forms of speech. 

d) Yet one more important task of this kind was reserved 
for the close of his life ; namely, to reconcile the divisions of 
in the Coun- the East and West, which threatened to break out, 
andrLf a.d. as tnev did afterwards, into open rupture on these 
36z - verbal questions. The Council of the Apostles at 
Jerusalem is the only one of which the direct object was not 
an enforcement of uniformity, but a toleration of diversity. 
That which, in later times, approached most nearly to it in 
this respect was the Council held at Alexandria, under the 
presidency of Athanasius, in the year 362. It consisted of 
the Bishops returning home from banishment, after the strug- 
gle with the Arians, and was intended to reunite, by an act 
of amnesty, the broken fragments of the Church. Those 
who had lapsed into Arianism were now on submission to be 
received again. 1 Lucifer of Cagliari, the fierce Sardinian, 
alone protested, and the long discord was healed. 

Amongst other questions brought before it was the dispute 
which had arisen in the Council of Nicsea on the meaning of 
Controversy the word hypostasis, and which had now reached its 
a!!d 'Sub'- 11 ' height. The Latins still used it in the sense in 
stance/ which it was used in the Nicene Creed, as iden- 
tical with ousia, which they translated by substantia, the ety- 
mological equivalent of hypostasis. But the Greeks had begun 
to use it in the sense of prosopon ('person'), and taunted the 
ignorant Latins with Sabellianism, whilst the Latins retorted 
with the charge of Arianism. Others, in the hope of stifling 
the quarrel, proscribed the use of both words. 2 * The con- 

1 Basil had to defend himself for perly adjusting these terms continued 
having done so. Athanasius's letters, even to the middle ages. (Remusat'6 
saying that he was to receive them with- Life of Anselm, p. 517.) See Dean Lid- 
out hesitation, were his warrant. Ep. dell's Sermon on the Real Presence, 
204, § 6 (306). where the history of the word in connec- 

2 Soc. iii. 7. The difficulty of pro- tion with the Eucharist is unfolded. 

R 



242 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



* troversy,' says Gregory, 1 had reached to such a pitch that 
' the two quarters of the world were on the point of being 
' torn asunder by a difference of syllables. When Athana- 
' sius of blessed memory saw and heard this, he, like a true 
1 man of God, like a grand steward of souls, determined that 
' this absurd and irrational division of the Divine Word was 
c not to be endured ; and the remedy, the charm, which 

* he had in his own character and mind, he brought to 

* bear on the disease. How did he effect this ? He called 
1 both sides together. He addressed them gently and kindly. 
' He explained in exact terms the sense of what was intended, 

* and when he found that they agreed, and had no difference 
1 in what they meant, he granted freely to each the use of 

* their words and names ; whilst he bound them together by 
' the things and facts which the words represented. This 
' was more profitable than all the long labours and discourses, 
1 in which perhaps there may have been an element of ambi- 
' tion and vanity. This is more honourable than all the 

* sleepless nights and hard couches, of which the advantage 
' ends with the endurance. This was worth all his famous 
1 wanderings and exiles ; for this was the object for which 
' he bore those sufferings, and to which he devoted himself 
' after those sufferings were over.' 

The Council of Alexandria was the last public occasion 
on which Athanasius appeared. It is pleasing to reflect that 
the last public acts of Athanasius's life were of wisdom, dis- 
cernment, and charity. 

In Goethe's ' Faust,' the counsel given by Mephistopheles 
is to pay no attention to things in theology, but to dwell solely 
Things, not on wor ^ s - This is the Devil's advice to theological 
words. students ; and, alas ! by too many, in every age of 
the world, most faithfully has it been followed. The advice 
and the example of Athanasius are exactly the contrary. 
Words no doubt are of high importance in theology. Both 
in ecclesiastical history and in the interpretation of Scrip- 
ture, the study of their origin and meaning is most fruitful. 



LECT. vir. HIS RELATIONS WITH S. BASIL. 243 



Athanasius himself introduced into our confessions one of 
the most famous of them. But this gives the greater force 
to his warning when he bids the contending parties ascertain 
first of all what is the meaning of the terms they use, and 
then, if the meaning on both sides is the same, to fix their 
attention not on the words respecting which they differ, but 
on the things respecting which they are agreed. 

One further final glimpse we catch of Athanasius. It is 
the sight, seldom witnessed, of a cordial salutation and fare- 
Relations we ^ k etween the departing and the coming genera- 
with Basil, tion. This is what we see in the correspondence 
a.d. 370. ^ ^ e a g £( j Athanasius and the active Basil, just 
entering on the charge of his new diocese in Asia Minor. 
The younger Prelate, suspected of heresy, eagerly appeals 
to the old oracle of Orthodoxy, and from him receives the 
welcome support which elsewhere he had sought in vain. 
' His accusers torment themselves without reason,' replied 
Athanasius. ' He has but condescended to the infirmities of 
' the weak. Think yourselves happy to have received as 
' your pastor a man so full of wisdom and of truth.' Basil 
longed to see the great reconciler face to face. 1 This was 
not to be. But, amidst the distracting perplexities of the 
time, he consoled himself by writing to him, and by de- 
lineating the venerable figure of the representative of the for- 
mer age. ' His head,' so Basil 2 describes him, ' is now white 
* with years. . . He has lived from the happy days before 
1 the Nicene Council, when the Church was at peace, into 
' these mournful days of boundless controversy. . . He is 
' the Samuel of the Church, the revered mediator between 
1 the old generation and the new. He is the skilful physi- 
' cian for the manifold diseases with which the Church is 
' labouring. 3 . . He stands,' — such is the expressive image 
drawn no doubt from the lighthouse (Pharos) of Athanasius's 
own city, — ' he stands on his lofty watchtower of specu- 
' lation, seeing with his ubiquitous glance what is passing 

1 Basil, Ep. 69, § 2 (52). 3 Ep. 68, § 1 (48). 8 Ep. 82. 

R 2 



244 



ATHANASIUS. 



LECT. VII. 



' throughout the world. He overlooks the wide stormy 

* ocean, where there is a vast fleet at sea, tossed and found- 
' ering in the waters, partly by the external violence of the 

* sea, still more by the mismanagement and misunderstand- 
1 ing of the crews of the several ships, running each other 

* down, and thrusting each other aside. . . With this image/ 
says S. Basil, ' I will conclude what I have to say. It is all 
' that the wisdom of Athanasius will require to be said ; it 
' is all that the difficulties of the time will permit me to say.* 

With this image, too, let me conclude. Our view over 
the sea of Ecclesiastical History, past and present and future, 
is as it was then. The tempest still rages ; the ships which 
went out of the harbour have never returned. They are still 
tossing to and fro, and beating against one another in the 
waves of controversy. 

It may have been an advantage to have gazed for a 
moment over this scene through the eyes and with the ex- 
periences of Athanasius the Great 



o 

|3 « 



oop 



S "3 - S 

<u o <u 
p4 O P4 



CO 



> ^ 



8 

a* 



•? ^ 'S « S 1 

£s a ^ $ -» ■** 



n o> o h 

O N N 

co co co co 



St cJ 



CO fO 



o 
erf 
w 

« I s 

« .$.§ 

o .1 ^ 

w it ■** 

55 i Q 

O ^ ^ 

u ^ Q 



tiJO 

o 
w 
O 



5 OS 

1 Jn? 

I §:§ 8 
r * 'I ~< 
a * « ° 



5 Q § ^ 



P. 
O 



5 £ 



3 f? ^ § 3 



•ft 

•2 ^ 



.3 s 



o 



O N 

to to 



•5 *w "a 



5i « g 

is 7^ -ct 

c o 65 

'o 2 



u < o ^ u w 



- S o 

S3 "S ci 

o S « 
u CP Q 



N N fO CO 
to CO CO CO 



•—I ^ (— t X 

o 

O O O « 

uuuc^ 



<u c$ 

'3 ^ 



Oh ~ 

2 *s .a o 



0 0) 

1 I I ^ 3 
< « w ^ cn 13 

o 2 £T « ° 2 

i— < P« -ii — 1 

"G -M "5 "G g 

O 8 O « 

U fa ^ U 04 



246" 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



LECTURE VIII. 



MAHOMETANISM IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE EASTERN 
CHURCH. 



There are few historical subjects on which the changes of our 
degrees of knowledge are so readily appreciable as in the case 
of the religion of Mahomet. 1 In the time of the Crusaders, 
Mahometans were vulgarly regarded as Pagan idolaters : it is 
now known that they abhor idolatry even more than we do. 
The very name of ' Mahomet ' (' Mawmet ' or ' Mummet ') was 
then taken for a graven image : it is now known that he abso- 
lutely forbade the use of any material representation. It was 
then believed that the name of Christ was held accursed in the 
eyes of Mussulmans : it is now known that He is held to be one 
of the greatest, almost the greatest, of their prophets. It was 
believed till the last century that Mahomet rested his claims on 
false miracles : it is now known, and indeed urged as an argu- 
ment against him, that he laid claim to no miracles at all. Vol- 
taire, no less than Prideaux and Gagnier, believed him to be a 
wicked impostor : it is now known that, at least for a large part 
of his life, he was a sincere reformer and enthusiast. The gross 



1 Of the authorities, the following 
may be selected : — 
On the Life of Mahomet : 

1. 'The Koran.' (Either Sale's trans- 

lation into English or Kasimir- 
sky's translation into French, or 
Lane's Selections.) 

2. Caussin de Percival's ' Histoire 

desArabes.' (1848.) 

3. Weil's ' Mohammed der Prophet.' 

(1843.) 



4. Sprenger's ' Life of Mohammed.' 

(1851-) 

5. Muir's ' Life of Mahomet.' (1858, 

1861.) 

On Mahometan Customs : 

1. Burckhcjrdt's 1 Notes on the Be- 

douins.' (1831.) 

2. Lane's ' Modern Egyptians.' (1836: 

singularly accurate.) 

3. Burton's 'Pilgrimage to Mecca 

and Medineh.' (1856.) 



lect. viii. CONNECTION WITH CHURCH IlSTORY. 247 

?, "*j ft • 

blunders formerly made in his Western, bicgra^tiies, from an in- 
sufficient knowledge of Arabic, 1 are now~jeetified ; and yet fur- 
ther, the reaction which took place in his favour at the beginning 
of this century has L^en checked by increased information from 
original sources. The story of his epileptic fits, a few years ago 
much discredited, seems naw co be incontrovertibly re-estab- 
lished ; and we have a firme: yrov.nd than before for believing 
that a decided change came over the simplicity of his character 
after the establishment of his kingdom at Medina. 

For the Koran, an attempt at a chronological arrangement of 
the chapters was made in Weil's ' Mohammed,' p. 364 ; which 
has been followed (in i860) by an exhaustive treatise by Pro- 
fessor Noldcke, ' Geschichte des Korans.' Professor Fleischer, 
at Leipzig, has long been preparing a German translation which 
will probably be the best. 2 

For the life of the Prophet the reader may be referred to 
(1) Mr. Muir's biography; (2) Dr. Sprenger's 'Life of Mo- 
hammed,' of which the first part appeared as a fragment in Eng- 
lish, published at Allahabad in 1851, and which was completed 
in German in three volumes, published at Berlin in 1861. This 
work is founded on a wider collection of traditions than has ever 
been brought before the eyes of any single critic. 

I trust, however, that the following brief remarks on the 
general connection of this subject with the history of the Church 
may be of service to the ecclesiastical student, and will justify 
the place which is assigned to it in these Lectures. 



1 A signal instance is the version of 
the famous speech of Ali as given by 
Gibbon and others, from Gagnier's trans- 
lation of Abu-l-Fida's Life of Mohamed : 
— O Prophet, I will be thy vizier. I 
will beat out the teeth, pull out the eyes, 
rip up the bellies, and break the legs of 
all who oppose you.' 

This speech, so unlike the gentle 
character of Ali, is now known to have 
run thus :— ' O Prophet, I will be thy 
vizier; though I am the youngest of 



them in years, and the weakest of them 
in eyes, and the biggest of them in belly 
[the invariable characteristic of an Arab 
child], and the most slender of them in 
legs, I, O Prophet of God, will be thy 
vizier over them.' — Lanes Selections 
from the Koran, p. 62. 

2 A few instances of the rhymed dic- 
tion of the Koran are given in Sprenger, 
pp. 121, 122. A metrical, though not a 
rhymed, version has since been published 
by Mr. Rodwell. 



248 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



As the Eastern Church ought always to be regarded 
as the background of the Western Church, so Mahometanism, 
Mahomet- at l east f° r tne ^ rst e ig nt centuries of its existence, 
anism. j s fa e background of both. The sword of the 
Saracen, the Turk, and the Tartar, constantly hung over the 
eastern confines of Christendom ; and down to the final re- 
pulse beneath the walls of Vienna, by John Sobieski 

Itsconnec- * . , 

tion with and the Duke of Lorraine, checked the policy and 
Europe, res trained the passions of the Churches and nations 
of Europe. The Crusades, the most important event of the 
middle ages, owe their origin entirely to the conflict with 
Islam. The Spanish Church and monarchy rose 
with Spam, Qut Q £ a crusac j e 0 f j ts owrL of faat crusade the 

traces have been left, not only in the Oriental manners and 
architecture of the Spanish nation, but in the fierce bigotry 
of the Spanish Church ; in the Inquisition ; in the union of 
chivalry, devotion, and fanaticism which marks the Spanish 
institution of the Society of Jesuits. The ' tabula rasa ' which 
with Hun- the ancient kingdom of Hungary presents, stripped 
gary> of all its historical and ecclesiastical monuments, is 
the lasting scar which the Turkish invasion and long occu- 
pation of that country have left on the face of Europe. The 
with the Re- agitations of the Reformation were constantly 
formation, arrested by the terror of the Sultan of Constanti- 
nople. Even our Prayer-book has one mark of the impor- 
tance of this panic, when, in the collect for Good Friday, the 
name of ' Turk ' was added to those of * Jews, Heretics, and 
Infidels,' for whose conversion in earlier days prayers had 
been offered up. Nor can it be forgotten that it is the only 
higher religion which has hitherto made progress 

with the . ° . ° . ttti 1 

African in the vast continent of Africa. Whatever may be 
Church, ^ future fortunes of African Christianity, there 
can be no doubt that they will long be affected by its relations 
with the most fanatical and the most proselytising portion 
of the Mussulman world in its negro converts. 

II. But with the Eastern Church Mahometanism has a 



lect. viii. CONNECTION WITH EASTERN CHURCH. 249 



more direct connection. Not only have the outward fortunes 
of the Greek, Asiatic, and Russian 1 Churches been affected 
by their unceasing conflict with this their' chief enemy, but 
it and they have a large part of their history and their con- 
withthe dition in common. Springing out of the same 
theEastem Oriental soil and climate, if not out of the bosom 
Church, Q f t ^Q Oriental Church itself, in part under its in- 
fluence, in part by way of reaction against it, Mahometanism 
must be regarded as an eccentric heretical form of Eastern 
Christianity. This, in fact, was the ancient mode of regard- 
ing Mahomet. He was considered, not in the light of the 
founder of a new religion, but rather as one of the chief 
heresiarchs of the Church. Among them he is placed by 
Dante in the ' Inferno.' 

Yet more than this, its progress, if not its rise, can be 
traced directly to those theological dissensions which form 
with the the main part of the ecclesiastical history of the 
Eastern^ East We are told by Dean Prideaux, that he 
church originally undertook the ' Life of Mahomet,' as 
part of a ' History of the Ruin of the Eastern Church,' to 
which he was led by his sad reflection on the controversies 
of his own time in England; 2 and the remarks, deeply in- 
structive and pathetic now as then, with which he opens 
his design, well express the connection between the two 
events . — 

» Notwithstanding those earnest expectations and strong 
hopes, which we entertained of having our divisions healed, and 
all those breaches which they have caused in the Church again 
made up ; finding those of the separation still to retain the 
same spirit on the one side, and some others to be so violently 
bent on the other, against everything that might tend to mollify 
or allay it, as to frustrate all those excellent designs which have 
been laid in order thereto ; I thought I could not better let those 
men see what mischief they both do hereby to the common 

1 See Lecture IX. importance of the Trinitarian contro- 

2 Pref. to Prideaux's Life of Maho- versy, which, after he had begun his 
met, pp. vi — xvi. He gave up the plan work, began to be agitated in England, 
from a fear of seeming to underrate the Ibid. pp. xvii. xviii. 



250 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



interest of Christianity than by laying before them the grievous 
ruin and desolation which, from the like cause, happened to the 
Churches of the East, once the most flourishing of the whole 
earth. For they, having drawn the abstrusest niceties into con- 
troversy which were of little or no moment to that which is the 
chief end of our Holy Christian religion, and divided and sub- 
divided about them into endless schisms and contentions, did 
thereby so destroy that peace, love, and charity from among 
them, which the Gospel was given to promote, and instead 
thereof continually provoked each other to that malice, rancour, 
and every evil work, that they lost the whole substance of their 
religion, while they thus eagerly contended for their own imagina- 
tions concerning it, and in a manner drove Christianity quite out 
of the world by those very controversies in which they disputed 
with each other about it. So that at length having wearied the 
patience and long-suffering of God, in thus turning this holy 
religion into a firebrand of hell for contention, strife, and violence 
among them, which was given them out of His infinite mercy to 
the quite contrary end, for the salvation of their souls, by living 
holily, righteously, and justly in this present world, He raised up 
the Saracens to be the instruments of His wrath to punish them 
for it ; who taking advantage of the weakness of power, and the 
distractions of councils, which these divisions had caused among 
them, soon overrun with a terrible devastation all the Eastern 
Provinces of the Roman Empire. 

' And when the matter came to this trial, some of those who 
were the hottest contenders about Christianity became the first 
apostates from it , and they who would not afore part with a 
nicety, an abstruse notion, or an unreasonable scruple, for the 
peace of the Church, were soon brought by the sword at their 
throats, to give up the whole in compliance to the pleasure of a 
barbarous and savage conqueror. 

'And no wonder that such, who had afore wrangled away 
the substance of their religion in contention and strife against 
each other, and eat out the very heart of it by that malice 
and rancour which they showed in their controversy about it, 
became easily content when under this force to part with the 
name also. 

' A sad memento to us ; for of all Christian Churches now re- 
maining in the world, which is there that hath more reason than 
we at this present, to learn instruction from this example, and 
take warning therefrom ? 5 



lect.viii. CONNECTION WITH EASTERN CHURCH. 25 1 



III. There were also direct points of contact between 
Connection tne religion of Mahomet and the Eastern Church 
Mahometan wn i cn ma y ^ e briefly noticed: — 
and Chris- Im The rise of his power was considerably aided 

tian teach- . x J 

ing by a circle m Mecca, amongst whom was the 

favourite slave Zeyd, who were predisposed to accept a 
purer faith than the Paganism of Arabia. This predisposi- 
tion they undoubtedly derived from intercourse 
with Eastern Christians, either from Abyssinia or 

Syria. 1 

2. Through the conflicting stories and legends of Maho- 
met's early life emerges one dark figure of whom the little 
that is said only serves to stimulate our curiosity. There are 
not a few mysterious characters of history, who have done 
more than the world will ever know or acknowledge, more 
B h . than they themselves expected or desired. Bahari, 

Bahyra, Sergius, George, whatever be the name of 
the Syrian or Nestorian monk of Bostra, is one of these. It 
seems impossible to refuse all credence to the manifold tra- 
ditions which represent him as conversing with Mahomet on 
his first journey with the camel- drivers, as welcoming the 
youthful Prophet with the presage of his coming greatness, 
and entering into the innermost circle of Mahomet's com- 
panions as the first and favourite friend. 2 In that case, we 
can hardly doubt that the Eastern Church, through this 
wandering heretical son, exercised a powerful control over 
the rising fortunes of Islam. 

3. The local legends of the Syrian or Arabian Christians, 
whether as communicated by Bahari or by others, form the 
groundwork of Mahomet's knowledge of Christianity, or at 
least of those parts of Christianity which he incorporated with 



1 Sprenger, 38, 41 ; Muir, ii. 7, 50 ; 
Koran, c. 85. 

' See Prideaux, 41 — 48 ; Muir, i. 35. 
As an instance of the permanence of 
Oriental traditions respecting Bahari, I 
may mention that I heard from the lips 



of an Egyptian Arab the identical story 
respecting Bahari's death which was 
told to Maundeville in the 14th century 
(c. xii.), and to Schwartz, the collector 
of Jewish traditions, in this century (p. 
346). 



252 



MAIIOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



his own religion. It is in this manner that one branch of 
ecclesiastical or sacred literature, little studied and with but 
slight influence in Christendom itself, has acquired an im- 
portance not sufficiently appreciated. The genuine canon- 
ical Gospels were almost unknown to Mahomet. 1 But the 
The a apocryphal Gospels, which enshrine so many of 
cryphai Gos- the traditions of Palestine and Egypt respecting the 
localities of the sacred story, and which no doubt 
circulated widely in the lower classes both of the East and 
West, were quite familiar to him. From these, with the 
total ignorance of chronology which besets an Oriental mind, 
he compiled his account of £ The Lord Jesus.' Hence came 
his description of the Holy Family: the Family of Amran, as 
he calls it, from a confused identification of Mary with 
Miriam the sister of Moses. Hence came the only concep- 
tion which he was able to form of the character and miracles 
of Christ ; a conception how inferior to the true one those 
only can tell who have compared the grotesque puerility of 
the apocryphal, with the grand sublimity of the canonical, 
narrative. 2 The same excuse that has been made for much 
of the unbelief of the West, must also be made for the mis- 
belief of the East. As we forgive the sceptics of the last 
century for a hatred to Christianity w T hich they only knew as 
represented by the corrupt monarchy and hierarchy of France, 
so may we still more forgive Mahomet for the inferior place 
which he assigned amongst the Prophets to Him whom he 
knew not as the Christ of the Four Evangelists, but as the 
Christ of the Gospel of the Infancy or of Nicodemus. 

4. Some few of his doctrines and legends are remarkable, 
Theim- not on ty as nav irig been derived by him from 
maculate Christian sources, but as having been received 

Conception. , . . _ 

back from him into Christendom. One is the doc- 

1 The two exceptions are : 1. The canonical writings of S. John. 2. The 

assumption to himself of the name of the account of the birth of John the Baptist, 

Paracletus, under the distorted form of which seems to be taken from S. Luke. 

Paraclytus, the ' illustrious.' The word, (Muir, ii. 313, 278.) 

as far as we know, is only found in the 3 See Muir, ii. 288. 



lect. viii. COMPARED WITH SACRED HISTORY. 253 



trine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. The 
assertion of her entire exemption from all stain of sin first 
appears, so far as is known, in a chapter in the Koran. 1 
The Seven Another is the story of the Seven Sleepers at 
Sleepers. Ephesus. It is, as Gibbon observes, 2 the most 
widely diffused, as it is the most suggestive, of all ecclesias- 
tical legends, and a large part of its diffusion it owes to its 
adoption in the Koran. A third is the belief in the myste- 
_., T ^ , rious personage 'El Khudr,' the 'Green one,' the 

El Khudr. r 0 ' , r 

counterpart, from a better side, of the legend of 
the Wandering Jew, but by Mussulmans identified partly 
with the Christian S. George, partly with the Hebrew Elijah ; 
the strange visitant of immortal youth, who appears to set 
right the wrong, and solve the obscure. 3 The story of El 
Khudr in the Koran is the earliest origin of the moral apo- 
logue well known to English readers through Parnell's poem 
of the Hermit and the Angel. 

IV. Through the peculiar circumstances of its appearance 
in Arabia, Mahometanism furnishes a storehouse of illustra- 
Comparison tion to Christian ecclesiastical history, such as can 
BibuSfhis- De found in none of the heathen religions of the 
tory. world. Its Eastern origin gives to all its outward 
forms .and expressions a likeness to the corresponding terms 
and incidents of the Old and New Testaments, which renders 
it invaluable as an aid to the Biblical commentator and his- 
torian. Its rise and growth present parallels and contrasts 
to the propagation of the Christian religion, and to the dif- 
ferent forms of the Christian Church, which can be found 
nowhere else. The comparison of its first beginnings with 
those of Christianity, if it could be done without exaggera- 
tion on either side, would supply by its resemblances an 
admirable commentary on the historical details, and by its 
contrasts an admirable evidence to the Divine spirit of the 
Gospel narrative. The circle of devoted disciples gathered 
round their master ; the jealousy and suspicion of the Arabian 

1 Koran, iii. 31, 37. * c 33. * Jelaladdin, 128, 406, 537. 



254 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



hierarchy ; ' the house of Arcam ' where their earliest meet- 
ings were held, as in 1 the house ' and ' the upper room ' of 
the Gospels and the Acts ; the constant recruitment of the 
new society from the humblest classes, especially from slaves; 1 
the peculiarities of the leading followers, especially the energy 
and zeal of the last and most reluctant convert, Omar the 
persecutor changed into Omar the devoted preacher and 
caliph, 2 are parallels which help us at every turn to under- 
stand the like passages in the story of the Gospels and the 
Acts ; whilst the immeasurable contrast between the Charac- 
ter which forms the centre of the one group, and that which 
forms the centre of the other, reveals to us the incommen- 
surable difference between the faith of Christianity and the 
faith of Islam. 

Or again, we can trace, with a clearness which throws a 
strong light on either side, the parallel between the con- 
Comparison fessedly natural part of the subsequent growth of 
astiJaThis- 1 ' tne tw0 ecclesiastical systems. In each case there 
tory - is a marked descent from the vigour and purity of 
the first followers to the weakness and discord of those 
who succeed. In each case the Church is broken up into 
divisions large and small, and is developed into systems of 
which its first framers knew nothing. Even the wide rent 
between Eastern and Western, and yet more between 
Catholic and Protestant, Christendom, finds its instructive 
likeness in the rent between the Sonnees and Shiahs of the 
Mussulman world. The exaltation of S. Peter or of the 
Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church, beyond the 
position which they occupied in the earliest ages, is met by 
the corresponding elevation of Ali amongst the Shiahs. 
The Pope was hardly more hateful in the eyes of Luther 
and Calvin, or the Greek Church in the eyes of the Pope, 
than Abubekr, Omar, and Othman have been in the eyes 
of the Persian and Indian Mahometans, who anathematise 
them as impostors and usurpers. 

* Sprenger, 159. 2 For the comparison of Omar to S. Paul, see Muir, ii. 168. 



lect. viii. COMPARED WITH THE BIBLE. 



255 



V. The Koran has special claims on our attention as 
the sacred book of the world which can best be compared 
The Koran with our own, 1 and which, by that comparison, 
Sith P the d furnishes not merely an evidence to the Divine 
Bible. supremacy of the Bible, but also brings into the 
strongest relief the true character of the contents and 
authority of the Scriptures, in contradistinction to the 
modern theories which have sometimes been formed con- 
cerning them. 

1. In its outward form there are two resemblances to 
different portions of the Bible. First, its chapters are 
Their resem- stam P e d by a peculiarly fragmentary and occa- 
biances. sional character, written as they are at different 
Theocca- periods of Mahomet's life, suggested by special 
racter of the incidents, modified by the successive exigencies 
of the time, revealing the struggles of his own 
inward feelings, and indicating the gradual progress of his 
career. These features of the book, which form its chief 
charm and its chief difficulty, also furnish the best proof of 
its genuineness. Something of the same charm, the same 
and of the difficulty, and the same evidence is afforded by 
Pauline the Pauline Epistles. The force of Paley's argu- 

Epistles. . . _£ _ . , , , , . 

ment in the ' Horae Paulmge may be tested by its 
application to the Koran. The difficulty which we find in 
the Koran from the contravention of the chronological order 
in the chapters, of which the earliest in time are the latest 
in position, and some of the latest in time amongst the earliest 
in position, is parallel to the confusion introduced into the 
study of S. Paul's Epistles by the disregard of their natural 
order, which has placed the Epistles to the Thessalonians 
nearly at the end, and the Epistle to the Romans at the 
beginning, of the series. Happily, in the case of the Pauline 
Epistles, the disarrangement has not yet become irretrievably 
stereotyped, as in the Koran, and we are therefore still able 

1 M. Earthf-lemy St. Hilaire (Jour- to the Bible are so much more distant, 
nal dcs savants, Aug. i860, p. 460) adds as to make the comparison less easy, 
the Veda. But the relations of the Veda 



256 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



to reap the benefit of their true historical sequence without 
difficulty. 

The other resemblance is of a totally different kind, and 
to a totally different part of the Scriptures. The position 
_ . . which the Koran has assumed in the Mahometan 

The legal 

character of world corresponds more nearly than that of any 
and of the other book or system to the Law or Pentateuch 
Pentateuch. . n j^jgjj ch urc h. It contains the civil as 
well as the moral and religious code of the nations which it 
governs. Its precepts are regarded as binding in the same 
literal sense as was the case with the Mosaic ordinances. 
It has given birth to an order or profession of men exactly 
similar to the Jewish Scribes. The clergy, if we may so call 
them, of the Mahometan Church are also its lawyers. The 
chief ecclesiastical functionary of Constantinople is also the 
chief legal officer. His duty is to expound the text of the 
Koran, and furnish such interpretations of it as will facilitate 
its application to the changes of modern times. The diffi- 
culty which arose in the Jewish Church, from the expansion 
and diffusion of the Jewish system beyond the pale of 
Palestine and of the chosen nation, has also arisen, though 
not to the same degree, in Islam. In Judaism the difficulty 
was solved by the submergence of the narrower dispensation 
of the Law in the freedom of the Gospel. In Mahometan 
countries it is solved by forced interpretations, bending the 
sacred text to circumstances which it never contemplated, 
and which it cannot truly cover. 

2. But the contrasts are far greater than the resem- 
blances. I do not speak of the acknowledged superiority of 
Their con- tne Christian doctrine, morals, or philosophy. For 
trasts. t hi s i et a single instance suffice. What is there in 
the Koran that can be named for a moment, as a proof 
of inspiration, in comparison with S. Paul's description of 
charity ? I confine myself to the contrast of form between 
the two books. The Koran shows us what the Bible would 
be if narrowed down to our puny measurements, and what 



LECT. VIII. 



THE KORAN, 



257 



in its own divine and universal excellence it actually is. In 
the comparison between the two we clearly see how the 
Koran is marked by those attributes which we sometimes 
falsely ascribe to the Bible ; how the peculiarities which we 
are sometimes afraid of acknowledging in the Bible are 
exactly those excellences which most clearly distinguish it 
from the Koran. 

a) The Koran is uniform in style and mode of expression. 
It is true, as I have just remarked, that when chronologically 
Uniformity arran § e d it exhibits to us, though in an indistinct 
of the form, the phases through which the mind of that 
one person passed. It is, as Mahomet's followers 
called it, 'his character.' It is, in this respect, as the Old 
Testament might be if it were composed of the writings of 
the single prophet Isaiah or Jeremiah, or the New Testa- 
ment if it were composed of the writings of the single 
Apostle S. Paul. It is what the Bible as a whole would be, 
if from its pages were excluded all individual personalities 
of its various writers, all differences of time and place and 
Variety of character. But the peculiarity both of the Hebrew 
the Bible. an( ^ Q £ Christian Scriptures is, that they are 
not confined to one place or time or person. They abound 
in incidents so varied, as to give to the whole book that 
searching application to every condition and character of 
life which has been a principal source of its endless edifi- 
cation. The differences between the several prophets and 
historians of the Old Testament, between the several evan- 
gelists and apostles of the New Testament, are full of mean- 
ing. On the face of each book we see what each book was 
intended to be and to teach. In each portion of each book 
we see what is prose, and what is poetry ; what is allegory, 
or parable, or drama, or vision, or prophecy ; what is 
chronicle, or precept, or narrative. The Bible is in this 
way not only its own interpreter, but its own guide. The 
styles of Scripture are so many heaven-planted sign-posts to 
set our feet in the right direction. There is no other book 

s 



258 



MAHOMETANISM. 



lect. vin. 



which, within so short a compass, contains such ' many- 
coloured \ttoXvttolki\os\ wisdom,' such a variety of minds, 
characters, and situations. 

b) The Koran represents not merely one single person, 
but one single stage of society. It is, with a few exceptions, 
XT purely Arabian. It is what the Bible would be, if 

Narrowness 1 J 7 

of the all external influences were obliterated, and it was 
wrapt up in a single phase of Jewish life. But in 
fact the Bible, though the older portion of it is strictly 
Oriental, and though the latest portion of it belongs not to 
the modern, but to the ancient and now extinct, world, yet 
even in its outward forms contains within it the capacities 
for universal diffusion. Emanating from Palestine, the 
Universality thoroughfare of the Asiatic and European nations, 
of the Bible. j tse jf a CO untry of the most diverse elements of 
life and nature ; it contains allusions to all those general 
topics which find a response everywhere. Whilst the Koran 
(with a very few exceptions) notices no phenomena except 
those of the desert, no form of society except Arabian life, 
the Bible includes topics which come home to almost every 
condition of life and almost every climate. The sea, the 
mountains, the town ; the pastoral, the civilised, the re- 
publican, the regal state ; can all find their expression in its 
words. Women emerge from their Oriental seclusion and 
foreshadow the destinies of their sex in European Chris- 
tendom. And not only so, but Egypt, Chaldaea, Persia, 
Greece, Rome, all come into contact with its gradual for- 
mation ; so that, alone of sacred books, it avowedly includes 
the words and thoughts of religions unconnected by any 
direct affiliation with its own ; alone of Oriental books, it 
has an affinity of aspect with the North and the West ; alone, 
almost, of religious books, its story is constantly traversing 
the haunts of men and cities. The Koran ' stays at home.' 
The Bible is the book of the world, the companion of every 
traveller ; read even when not believed, necessary even 
when unwelcome. 



LECT. VIII. 



THE KORAN. 



259 



c) The Koran prides itself on its perfection of compo- 
sition. Its pure Arabic style is regarded as a proof of its 
Purity of divinity. To translate it into foreign languages 1 
tSundL ls esteemed by orthodox Mussulmans to be im- 
Koran. pious, and when it is translated its beauty and 
interest evaporate. The book is believed to be in every 
word and point the transcript of the Divine original, Ma- 
homet to have been literally 'the sacred penman.' No 
various readings exist Whatever it once had were destroyed 
by the Caliph Othman. Such is the strength of the Koran. 
In far other and opposite quarters lies the strength of the 
Bible ; and Christian missionaries, who are, I believe, con- 
stantly assailed by Mussulman controversialists with argu- 
ments drawn from this contrast, ought to be well grounded 
in the knowledge that in what their adversaries regard as 
Variations our wea kness * s * n f act om " rea l strength. Its lan- 
and pecu- guage is not classical, but in the Old Testament 

harities of ° 0 ... 

the text of uncouth, in the New Testament debased ; yet, 
both in the Old and New, just such as suits the 
truths which it has to convey. 2 The primitive forms of 
Hebrew are as well suited for the abrupt simplicity of the 
prophetic revelations, as they would be ill suited for science 
or philosophy. The indefinite fluctuating state of the Greek 
language at the time of the Christian era, admirably lends 
itself to the fusion of thought which the Christian religion 
produced. Its various readings are innumerable, and, in 
the New Testament, form one of the most instructive fields 
of theological study. Its inspiration is not, as in the Koran, 
attached to its words, and therefore is not, as in the Koran, 
confined to the original language. It is not only capable 
of translation, but lends itself to translation with peculiar 
facility. The poetry of the Old Testament, depending for 

1 The only exceptions to this rule are phets (Commentary on Hosea, pp. 5, 6), 
such versions as unite paraphrase with and by Professor Jowett in regard to the 
translation. Greek of the New Testament (Commen- 

2 This is well drawn out by Professor tary on S. Paul, i. p. 135 ; Essay on 
Pusey in regard to the style of the Pro- Interpretation, p. 390). 

S 2 



260 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



the most part, not on rhyme or metre, but on parallelism, 
reappears with almost equal force in every version. The 
translations of the New Testament, from the superiority of 
most modern languages to the debased state of Greek at the 
time of the Christian era, are often superior in beauty of 
style and diction to the original. The Apostles themselves 
used freely a rude version of the Old Testament. We use, 
without scruple, conflicting and erroneous versions of both. 
The essence of the Bible, if the essence be in its spirit, and 
not in its letter, makes itself felt through all. 

d) The Koran claims a uniform completeness of 
materials. It incorporates, indeed, some of the earlier 
Monotony J ew i sn > Christian, and Arabian traditions, but it 
of the professes to be one book. It has no degrees of 
authority in its several chapters, except in the few 
instances of direct abrogation of precepts. With these 
exceptions, it is entirely stationary. It has no progress, 
and therefore no sequence, and no coherence. The Bible, 
in all these respects, stands on what some modern writers 
would deem a lower level, but on what is in fact a far higher 
Multiplicity one. Its composition extends over two thousand 
of the Bjbie. event f u i y ears> i n most 0 f its books are im- 
bedded fragments of some earlier work, which have served to 
keep alive and to exercise the industry and acuteness of critics. 
It is not one Testament, but two. It is not one book, but 
many. The very names by which it was called in early times 
indicate the plurality of its parts. The word ' Bible,' which by 
a happy solecism expresses the unity of its general design, is 
of far later date and lower authority than the words, ' Scrip- 
tures,' 'The books, Biblia Sacra,' 1 by which it was called 
for the first twelve centuries of the Christian era, and which 
expressed the still grander and bolder idea of its diversity. 
The most exact definition which it gives of its own inspira- 

1 For the original neuter plural of Bibbia, &c.) first appears in the 13th 

Biblia Sacra (the Sacred Books), the century. See Ducange in voce Biblia 

feminine singular (whence is derived our Sacra ; Smith's Diet, of Bible under 

word ' Bible,' Die Bibel, La Bible, La Bible. 



LECT. VIII. 



THE KORAN. 



26l 



tion is, that it is 1 of sundry times and in divers manners.' 1 
In the fact and in the recognition of this gradual, partial, 
progressive nature of the Biblical revelation, we find the 
best answer to most of its difficulties and the best guarantee 
of its perpetual endurance. 

e) The Koran contains the whole religion of Mahomet. 
It is to the Mussulman, in one sense, far more than the Bible 
is to the Christian. It is his code of laws, his 

Theexclu- . . 1 

sivenessof creed, and (to a great extent) his liturgy. The 
Bible, on the other hand, demands for its full 
effect, the institutions, the teaching, the art, the society of 
Christendom. It propagates itself by other means than the 
mere multiplication of its printed or written copies. Sacred 
pictures, as is often said, are the Bibles of the unlettered. 
Good men are living Bibles. Creeds are Bibles in miniature. 
Its truths are capable of expansion and progression, far 
beyond the mere letter of their statement. The lives and 
deeds, and, above all, the One Life, and the One Work 
which it records, spread their influence almost irrespectively 
of the written words in which they were originally recorded. 
It is not in the close limitation of the stream to its parent 
spring, but in the wide overflow of its waters, that the true 
fountain of Biblical inspiration proves its divine abundance 
and vitality. 

* Mohamed's truth lay in a holy book, 
Christ's in a Sacred Life. 

4 So while the world rolls on from change to change, 
And realms of thought expand, 
The letter stands without expanse or range, 
Stiff as a dead man's hand. 

4 While, as the life-blood fills the glowing form, 
The Spirit Christ has shed 



1 Heb. i. i. I have elsewhere had 
occasion to enlarge on the manifold in- 
struction conveyed by this Scriptural 
definition of Scripture revelation. Pre- 
cisely this same use of the passage was 



made, in my hearing, by the late vener- 
able metropolitan of Moscow (Philaret), 
in answer to difficulties suggested by 
parts of the Old Testament. 



262 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



Flows through the ripening ages, fresh and warm, 
More felt than heard or read.' 1 

VI. It would be irrelevant to enter into any detailed 
comparison of the doctrines and practices of Islam with 
those of Christianity. But they contain points of special 
contact or contrast which illustrate the course of Christian 
theology and ecclesiastical usages, as the peculiarities of the 
Koran illustrate the position of, the Bible and the course of 
Christian exegesis. 

i. On the one hand, it is the extreme Protestantism, or 
Puritanism, of the East. Whether or not the Iconoclasm 
Likeness to °f tne seventh century in Constantinople had 
Puritanism. an y direct connection with the nearly contempo- 
raneous rise of Mahometanism, there can be little doubt 
that the two movements had rise in the same feeling of 
reaction against the excessive attention to outward objects 
of devotion. In the case of Mahomet, there was super- 
added the sentiment, whether imitated from the Hebrew 
Scriptures or instinctive in the Arabian branch of the 
Semitic race, which returned with all its force to the belief 
itsicono- m tne One Unseen God. The Iconoclasm of 
clasm. Mahomet far exceeds that either of Leo the 
Isaurian or of John Knox. The Second Commandment, 
with Mussulmans, as with the Jews, was construed literally 
into the prohibition of all representations of living creatures 
of all kinds ; not merely in sacred places, but everywhere. 
The distinction drawn in the West, between churches and 
houses, between objects of worship and objects of art, was 
in the simpler East unknown. The very form and name of 
1 Arabesque ' ornamentation, always taken from inanimate, 
never from animated nature, 2 tells the shifts to which 
Mahometans were driven, when civilisation compelled them 
to use an art which their religion virtually forbade. The 

1 Milnes's Palm Leaves, 38. The Preface contains aan excellent summary of the 
better side of Mahometanism. 

2 See Burton, ii. 157. 



lect. viii. LIKENESS TO PROTESTANTISM. 263 



one exception in the Alhambra (the same that occurred in 
the Palace of Solomon) is an exception that proves the rule. 
The rude misshapen ' lions ' that support the fountain in 
the beautiful court which bears their name, show how un- 
accustomed to such representations were the hands which 
to all other parts of the building have given so exquisite a 
finish. 

Other points of resemblance to the Reformed branches 
of the Christian Church — the more remarkable from the 
excessive ritualism of the Eastern Churches, and 

Its simplicity ... . , . . . . 

and its their almost entire neglect of preaching — are the 
preaching. s j m p]j c j t y 0 f t h e Mussulman ceremonial, and the 
importance attached to sermons. The service of their 
sacred day, Friday, is, like Puritan worship, chiefly dis- 
tinguished by the delivery of a discourse. 1 In the pilgrim- 
age to Mecca, the delivery of the sermon is said to be the 
most impressive of all the solemnities. There are few 
Christian preachers who might not envy the effect described 
by one 2 not given to exaggerate religious influences : 

4 The pulpit at Meccah is surmounted by a gilt polygonal 
pointed steeple, like an obelisk. A straight narrow staircase 
leads up to it. It stands in the great court of the Mosque. 
When noon drew nigh, we repaired to the haram for the sake of 
hearing the sermon. Descending to the cloisters below the 
Gate of Ziyadah, I stood wonder-struck by the scene before me. 
The vast quadrangle was crowded with worshippers sitting in 
long rows, and everywhere facing the central black tower ; the 
showy colours of their dresses were not to be surpassed by a 
garden of the most brilliant flowers, and such diversity of detail 
as would probably not be seen massed together in any other 
building upon earth. The women, a dull and sombre-looking 
group, sat apart in their peculiar place. The Pacha stood on 
the roof of Zem-Zem, surrounded by guards in Nizam uniform. 
Where the principal Ulema stationed themselves, the crowd 
was thicker ; and in the more auspicious spots naught was to be 
seen but a pavement of heads and shoulders. Nothing seemed 

1 An example is given in Lane's 1 Burton's Pilgrimage, iL 314; Hi. 

Modern Egyptians, i. 100. 177. 



264 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



to move but a few dervishes, who, censer in hand, sidled through 
the rows and received the unsolicited alms of the faithful. Ap- 
parently, in the midst, and raised above the crowd by the tall 
pointed pulpit, whose gilt spire flamed in the sun, sat the 
preacher, an old man with snowy beard. The style of head- 
dress called the Taylasan (a scarf thrown over the head, with 
one end brought round under the chin and passed over the left 
shoulder) covered his turban, which was as white 1 as his robes, 
and a short staff supported his left hand. Presently he arose, 
took the staff in his right hand, pronounced a few inaudible 
words (" Peace be with you, and the mercy of God, and his 
blessings "), and sat down again on one of the lower steps, whilst 
a Muezzin, at the foot of the pulpit, recited the call to sermon. 
Then the old man stood up and began to preach. As the 
majestic figure began to exert itself, there was a deep silence. 
Presently a general " Amin " was -intoned by the crowd at the 
conclusion of some long sentence. And at last, towards the end 
of the sermon, every third or fourth word was followed by the 
simultaneous rise and fall of thousands of voices. I have seen 
the religious ceremonies of many lands, but never — nowhere— 
aught so solemn, so impressive as this spectacle.' 

2. But in spite of the likeness to the more modern and 
Likeness to northern forms of Western Christianity, Mahome- 
Cathoiicism. tanism after all has far more affinity to the older, 
and especially to the Eastern forms of the Christian Church. 

Most of the peculiarities that characterise the Greek 
or the Latin Church, have their counterparts in the Ma- 
hometan system. 

a) In one instance, the Jewish element survives almost 
unaltered. 'The Mahometan religion,' says Gibbon, as if 
in praise of its purity, ' has no Priest and no 
its sacrifices. g acr jfi ce > This statement must be considerably 
qualified. Sacrifice, though it forms no part of the daily 
worship in the mosque, yet on solemn occasions is an 
essential element of the Mussulman ritual. It is generally, 
if not universally, of the nature of a thank-offering, and, 

1 In former times, the preacher was rings, one on each side of the pulpit, with 
habited from head to foot in black, and the staves propped upon the first step, 
two muezzins held black flags fixed in 



lect. viii. LIKENESS TO CATHOLICISM. 



265 



as in the case of most ancient sacrifices, is combined with 
an act of benevolence to the poor. To the Bedouin Arabs 
it is almost their only act of devotion. It was only under 
the pretext of sacrificing on the tomb of Aaron that Buck- 
hardt was able to enter Petra. The railroad recently 
opened from the Danube to the Black Sea was inaugurated 
by the sacrifice of two sheep. The vast slaughter 1 of 
victims at Mecca is the only scene now existing in the 
world that recalls the ancient sacrifices of Jew or Pagan. 
In short, it might be said that, so far from Mahometanism 
being the only religion without a sacrifice, it is the only 
civilised religion that retains a sacrifice, not spiritually 
or mystically, but in the literal ancient sense. 

b) Although a priesthood, in the sense of an hereditary 
£>r sacrificing caste, is not found in the Mahometan world, 
its priest- y et a priesthood in the sense in which it is 
hood. found in Protestant or Catholic Christendom, a 
powerful hierarchy, possessed of property and influence, 
and swaying the religious feelings of mankind, exists in 
Mahometan even more than in Christian countries. The 
identification of the Koran with the Law at once raises the 
order of the interpreters of the Koran to a level with the 
highest legal dignitaries of the West. The ofhce of Scribes, 
as we have seen, is exactly reproduced. The Sheykh-el- 
Islam, the great ecclesiastical functionary at Constantinople, 
who unites in himself the functions of the Primate and the 
Lord Chancellor, is, or at least was till lately, as considerable 
a personage as any prelate in Christendom short of the Pope. 
The Sheykh-el-Bekr, at Cairo the lineal descendant of Abu- 
Bekr the administrator of the property of the mosques, is at 
least as high in popular estimation as Archimandrite, Abbot, 
or Dean, in East or West. The Muftis 2 and the Dervishes 
are a body as formidable to Mussulman rulers and laymen 



1 See Burton, Hi. 303, 313. mostly persons of humble condition and 

a This importance does not attach to attainments, and combine their office 
the Imams, or the Preachers. They are with some other occupation. 



266 



MAHOMETANISM. lect. viii. 



as any body of ecclesiastics or monks would be to the same 
classes amongst ourselves. To the dervishes the same 
blame and the same praise might be awarded, as to the 
friars of the Western, or the hermits of the Eastern, 
Church. 1 

c) If it is startling to find this system of earthly media- 
tion in a religion which we are often taught to consider as 
Veneration allowing no intervening obstacle between man and 
for saints. ^ Q ne True God, still more are we surprised to 
find that the same system of celestial mediation in the 
form of the worship or veneration of saints, 2 which prevails 
through the older portions of Christendom, has overspread 
the whole of the Mahometan world. Bedouins who go no- 
where else to pray, 3 will pray beside the tomb of a saint. 
The ' Welys,' or white tombs of Mussulman saints, form a 
necessary feature of all Mussulman landscapes. It is a 
significant fact that the westernmost outpost of Mahometan 
worship — the last vestige of the retiring tide of Turkish 
conquest from Europe — is the tomb of a Turkish saint. On 
a height above the Danube, at Buda, the little chapel still 
remains, visited once a year by Mussulman pilgrims, who 
have to thread their way to it up a hill which is crowned 
with a Calvary, and through a vineyard clustering with the 
accursed grape. The Arabian traveller of the middle ages, 
who visits Thebes, 4 passes over all the splendour of its 
ruins, and mentions only the grave of a Mussulman hermit. 
The sanctity of the dead man is attested by the same means 
as in the Eastern churches, 5 generally by the supposed in- 
corruptibility of the corpse. The intercession of a well- 
known saint is invested with peculiar potency. However 
much the descendants of a companion of a Prophet plunder 



1 See Lecture X. ; and comp. Wolff's 
Life, i. 483. 

a Compare Wolffs Life, i. 505. 

3 Comp. Sprenger, 107. It was 
against the wish of Mahomet himself, 
gee Burton, ii. 71. 

* ' I went to the town of Luxor, 



which is small but pretty. There one 
sees the tomb of the pious hermit of 
Abou l'Hagag, near which is a hermit- 
age.' — Ibn Eatoutah, p. 107. This is 
all that he says of Thebes. 
* Burton, ii. in. 



lect. viii. VENERATION FOR SAINTS. 



267 



or oppress, they are secure in the celestial protection of 
their ecclesiastical ancestor. 

These features it has in common with the doctrines and 
practices of the Latin, as well as the Greek Church. It is 
evident, on the one hand, that, being the products of a 
religion outside the pale of Christendom, they cannot be 
regarded as essentially and peculiarly Christian ; and, on 
the other hand, that, being the natural growth of human 
feeling everywhere, they may be regarded calmly, and with- 
out the terror or the irritation which is produced when they 
are looked upon as the heritage of a near and rival sect. 

3. There are yet other points in which Mahometanism, 
as being essentially an Oriental religion, approaches most 
its Eastern nearly to the forms of Eastern Christendom, though 
character, retaining some defects and some excellences of 
the East, which even Eastern Churches have modified or 
rejected. 

a) The legal, literal, local, ceremonial character of the 
religion of Mussulmans is, in spite of its simplicity, carried 
its cere- to a pi tcn beyond the utmost demands either of 
moniai. Rome or of Russia. What their ideas of the Koran 
are, compared with even the narrowest ideas of the Bible, 
we have already seen. Prayer is reduced to a mechanical 
as distinct from a mental act, beyond any ritual observances 
in the West. It is striking to see the figures along the 
banks of the Nile going through their prostrations, at the 
rising of the sun, with the uniformity and regularity of 
clockwork ; but it resembles the worship of machines rather 
than of reasonable beings. Within a confined circle of 
morality the code of the Koran makes doubtless a deeper 
impression than has been made on Christians by the code 
of the Bible. But beyond that circle it^cannot be said to 
equal the vivifying influence which the Bible has unques- 
tionably exercised even over the unconscious instincts and 
feelings of Christendom. Morality and religion, which 
stand sufficiently far asunder in the practice of Oriental 



268 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



Christianity, stand farther still apart in the practice of a 
large part of Islam. 

b) The absence of religious art which we have already 
observed in Eastern, as distinct from Western, Christendom, 
Absence of ls carried to the highest point by Mahometans. 
art - Partly this arises from the iconoclastic tendency 
before mentioned ; but mainly it is the result of that care- 
lessness of artistic effort which belongs to all Oriental 
nations. However tedious is the monotony of the Christian 
Churches of the East, that of Mahometan mosques is still 
more so. 

c) But if art is banished from their worship, reason is no 
less banished from the creed, at least of the vulgar. The 
Credulity rec ^ ess extravagance of credulity which strikes us 

in Oriental Christians, strikes us still more in Ma- 
hometans. There are no miracles in the Koran ; but this 
only brings out into stronger relief the insatiable avidity 
with which any expression that could bear such a meaning 
has been magnified and multiplied into the wildest portents. 
It is the childish invention of the Arabian Nights let loose 
upon the unseen world. ' I knew a man in Christ above 
' fourteen years ago,' says S. Paul, 1 '(whether in the body 
' or out of the body I know not, God knoweth) ; such an 
' one caught up into the third heaven. ... How that he 
1 was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable things 
* which it is not lawful for man to utter.' Neither Scripture 
nor tradition says one word further to break this silence 
thus imposed upon himself by the Apostle. Contrast with 
this the endless stories told (as it would seem from his 
latest biographer 2 ) by Mahomet, after his vision of the 
nocturnal flight from Mecca, to his enquiring disciples, of 
the wonders of Paradise, of the peculiarities of the gigantic 
Borak, of the personal appearance of each of the departed 
prophets, of the leaves of the tree of life, of the immeasurable 
distances between the heavenly spheres. 

1 2 Cor. xii. 2-6. * Sprenger's Mohammed, L i26 t 136, 



lect. viii. ITS EASTERN CHARACTER. 



269 



d) The frantic excitement of the old Oriental religions 
still lingers in their modern representatives. The mad 
Excitement S amD °l s °^ tne Greek and Syrian pilgrims round 

the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre have been suffi- 
ciently told. But they ought in justice to be compared 
with the still wilder frenzy of the Mussulman dervishes. 
Both are Eastern ; both belong to those wild forms of 
religion which S. Paul laboured to restrain amongst the 
first Christian converts. 1 But the Mahometan shows in 
excess what the other shows in comparative moderation. 
Of all modern ceremonials, none probably comes so near 
the description of the priests of Baal, cutting themselves 
with knives and lancets, leaping on and around the altar, 
and shouting from morning till evening, ' O Baal, hear us ! ' 
as the celebration of the Prophet's birthday at Cairo, 2 when 
the dervishes, by the constant repetition of the name of 
* Allah, Allah,' are worked into a state of unconsciousness, 
in which they plant swords in their breasts, tear live serpents 
with their teeth, eat bottles of glass, and finally lie prostrate 
on the ground for the chief of their order to ride on horse- 
back over their bodies. 

e) As in these extravagancies, so also in some of its 
noblest aspects, we see the same spirit reappearing in Ma- 
hometanism that we have already noticed in the Churches 
of the East. 

That manly independence which knows no false shame 
or reserve in professing its religion in the face of the world, 
indepen- 1S tne noble heritage of the Turk and the Arab, as 
dence. much as of the Greek or the Russian. It is this 
which renders the Mussulman, even more than the Christian 
layman of the East, a priest to himself, independent of the 
instructions and the influence of the hierarchy, whom he yet 
regards with profound veneration. It is this (combined no 
doubt with the mechanical nature of their prayers, to which 



1 1 Cor. xiv. 26-40. An accurate description is given in 

a I write from my own recollections. Lane's Modern Egyptians, ii. 200-232. 



270 



MAHOMETANISM. 



LECT. VIII. 



I have before alluded) that renders their devotions so 
natural, so easy, so public. It is this which lends to every 
Oriental congregation, but especially to every Mussulman 
congregation, its main distinction from every Western con- 
gregation, namely, the immense preponderance of men over 
women. In many Western Churches the man is the ex- 
ception amongst the worshippers ; in all Eastern mosques 
the exception is the woman. 

The gravity and the temperance of the Mussulman are 
doubtless congenial to the dignity and simplicity of Oriental 
Gravity and n ^ e * ^ n these respects, both Western and Eastern 
temperance. Christianity, though gaining more, have lost much. 
1 An Eastern city has no exhibitions of paintings, no concerts, 

* no dramatic representations, only recitations of tales in 
' prose and verse in coffee-houses ; and the prohibition of 

* games of chance excludes cards and dice. Wine can only 

* be drunk in private. . . . Gravity, not dissipation, is, at 

* least in public, the characteristic of a Mahometan nation.' 1 

Finally, the Mussulman preserves to the world the 
truest and most literal likeness of that ancient Jewish faith 
_ . . which is expressed in the word ' Islam,' 1 Resig- 

Kesignation. 1 7 ° 

nation,' to the will of God. However distorted 
it may be into fatalism and apathy, yet it is still a powerful 
motive both in action and in suffering. God is present to 
them in a sense in which He is rarely present to us amidst 
the hurry and confusion of the West If ' the love of God ' 
is a feeling peculiar to Christendom, yet the ' fear of God ' 
within a narrow circle may be profitably studied, even by 
Christians, in the belief and the conduct of the followers of 
Islam. 

These are the qualities which, being not so much Ma- 
hometan or Arabian, as Oriental, primitive, Semitic, and (in 
the best sense of the word) Jewish, no Christian can regard 
without reverence, even in their humblest form ; nor can he 
abandon the hope that if ever the time should come for the 

1 Dr. Macbride's Mahometanism, p. 179. 



lect.viii. ITS EASTERN CHARACTER. 



271 



gathering of the followers of Mahomet within the Christian 
fold, gifts like these need not be altogether lost to the world 
and the Church in the process of that transition ; that the 
habits of temperance, devotion, and resignation, which 
Mussulman belief encourages, may be combined with the 
grace, the humility, the purity, the freedom of the GospeL 



272 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



LECTURE IX. 

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



The main accessible authorities for the history of the Russian 
Church are, as far as I have been able to ascertain them, 
the following : — 

1. Nestor, the Monk of KiefT. a.d. 1116. 5 vols. (Edited 

by Schldzer. German. 1802.) 

2. Karamsin's 4 History of Russia.' 11 vols. 8vo. to 1618. 

(Translated into French.) 

3. OustralierT's ' History of Russia.' 5 vols to 1815. 

(Translated, not published, by the Rev. R. W. Black- 
more.) 

4. Strahl's and Hermann's ' History of Russia.' 6 vols, to 

181 5. (German.) 

5. Mouravieff's ' History of the Russian Church.' 1 vol. 

8vo. to 1 7 10. (Translated by the Rev. R. W. Black- 
more.) 

6. Strahl's ' Contributions to the Russian Church History.' 

1 vol. 8vo. (German.) It contains : — 

a. A Catalogue Raisonnee of the Documentary 

History of the Russian Church. 

b. A Chronological Summary of Ecclesiastical 

History in Russia. 

c. A History of the Russian Sects. 

d. A Chronological List of the Russian Hierarchy. 

7. 'Doctrines of the Russian Church.' 1 vol. 8vo. 

(Translated by the Rev. R. W. Blackmore.) 

8. 1 History of the Church of Russia.' (An able summary 

in the Christian Remembrancer, vol. x. p. 245. By 
the Rev. James B. Mozley.) 



LECT. IX. 



ITS IMPORTANCE. 



273 



9. Adelung's ' Catalogue Raisonnee of Travellers in 
Russia.' 

10. ' Monumenta Historiae Russicse.' 2 vols. 8vo. (Being 

a collection of foreign State Papers bearing on 
Russia.) 

1 1. Haxthausen's 1 Researches in Russia.' (German and 

French.) 



The third great historical manifestation of the Oriental 
The Russian Church is the formation of the Russian Church 
Church. anc [ Empire. 

Before I enter upon its leading divisions, let me give the 
main reasons why a history so obscure in itself, and in some 
its import- °f lts features so repulsive, deserves to be specially 
ance * noticed in connection with the history of the East- 
ern Church, and why it is fitly considered before we cross 
the threshold of the history which most concerns ourselves, 
the history of the Western Church generally, and of the 
English Church in particular. 

I. The Russian Church is the only important portion of 
Eastern Christendom which presents any continuous history, 
its history ^ ne two otner epochs which we have noticed, 
continuous although highly instructive in themselves, are yet 

and national. . , 

isolated events, rather than long-sustained move- 
ments. They represent particular phases of Eastern religion. 
They do not represent it in its active organisation, in its 
effects on national character, or its relations to the ordinary 
vicissitudes of men and of Empires. Western ecclesiastical 
history would lose more than half its charms, if it had not 
for its subject the great national Churches of Europe. And 
in like manner Eastern ecclesiastical history must fail of its 
purpose, unless it can find some field in which we can trace 
from century to century, and in their full-blown develop- 
ment, those principles and practices of the Oriental Church 
which have been already unfolded in general terms. 

This field is presented in the Russian Church. In it 

T 



274 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



alone we trace a growth and progress analogous to that 
which Western or Latin Christianity found in the Teutonic 
tribes of Europe. And although the Northern and Scla- 
vonic elements form the basis of the Church and Empire of 
Russia, yet by its situation, by its origin, and by the singular 
powers of imitation with which its members are gifted, it is 
essentially Asiatic and Oriental. And, further, through the 
gradual incorporation of Russia into the commonwealth of 
Western nations, the Eastern Church has acquired a voice 
or speech, which it has lost, or has never gained, elsewhere. 
The feeling which the native Russians entertain towards the 
Western world is a likeness of the feeling which we ourselves 
entertain towards the Eastern world. The Russian word for 
a foreigner, but especially for a German, is ' the dumb,' ' the 
' speechless ; ' and it has happened within the experience of 
an English traveller, that Russian peasants, passing by and 
seeing a conversation going on in a foreign language, have 
exclaimed in astonishment — £ Look at those people ; they 
* are making a noise, and yet they cannot speak ! ' Very 
similar to this is the way in which, as a general rule, we 
regard, almost of necessity, the Eastern Churches generally. 
To us, with whatever merits of their own, they are dumb. 
Their languages, their customs, their feelings, are unknown 
to us. We pass by and see them doing or saying something 
wholly unintelligible to us, and we say — i Look at those 
' people ; they are making a noise, and yet they cannot 
' speak ! ' In a great measure this difficulty severs us from 
the Russian Church, as well as from the other branches of 
Oriental Christendom. Still, in Russia, if anywhere in the 
East, we can from time to time listen and understand with 
advantage. The Sclavonic power of imitation opens a door 
which elsewhere is closed. The Western influences which 
from the age of Peter have streamed into Russia, though 
they have often undermined the national character, have yet, 
where this is not the case, given to it the power, not only of 
expressing itself in Western languages, but of understanding 



lect. ix. ITS ORIENTAL CHARACTER. 



27s 



Western ideas, and adapting itself to Western minds. A 
Russian alone presents, amidst whatever defects and draw- 
backs, this singular interest : that he is an Asiatic, 1 but with 
the sensibility and intelligence of a European : 2 that he is, 
if he will, a barbarian, but with the speech and communica- 
tions of civilisation. 1 Scratch him,' said the Prince de 
Ligne, 'and you will always find the Tartar underneath.' 
Most true ; but it is just that superficial coating of civilised 
life which brings ' the Tartar ' into contact with us, whom 
else we should never catch at all. ' The Tartar,' the Ori- 
ental, who in the Armenian, the Syrian, or the Abyssinian 
Church eludes our grasp altogether, in the Russian Church 
is within our touch, within our questioning, within our 
hearing. 

II. Another peculiarity of the history of the Church of 
Russia is that it enables us within a short compass to go 
its parallel through the whole field of ecclesiastical history, 
Christen-" 1 which in tne West, whilst familiar to us in detail, 
dom - is too vast to be comprehended in any one survey. 
With many differences, produced by diverse causes, of cli- 
mate, of theology, of race, the history of the Russian Empire 
and Church presents a parallel to the history of the whole 
European Church, from first to last, not merely fanci- 
ful and arbitrary, but resulting from its passage through 
similar phases, in which the likenesses are more strongly 
brought out by the broad differences just mentioned. The 
conversion of the Sclavonic races was to the Church of 

1 A few of their Eastern customs may the comer. The corners of the Patri* 

be mentioned, to which, doubtless, any archal church are occupied by the most 

one better acquainted with the country illustrious tombs. 3. The seclusion of 

could add many more. 1. The practice women lasted till the time of Peter, and 

of taking off the shoes on entering any still is kept up (in church) in the Russian, 

great presence. This, though now dis- sects. 4. The Orientalism of ecclesiasti- 

continued, was till lately commemorated cal usages they share with the rest of the 

by the picture of Joshua taking off his Eastern Church. 

shoes at the entrance of the Hall of the 3 ' They look as if they had had a 

Kremlin. 2. The comer of a room is Turk for their father and a Quaker for 

still the place of honour. The sacred their mother.' — Princess DashkojjTs 

picture is always in the comer. The Memoirs, iL 318. 
Czar, at the coronation banquet, sits in 

T 2 



276 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



Constantinople what the conversion of the Teutonic races 
was to the Church of Rome. The Papacy and the Empire 
of Charlemagne had, as we shall see, their dim reflection on 
the throne of Moscow. Russia, as well as Europe, had its 
middle ages, though, as might be expected from its later 
start in the race of civilisation, extending for a longer period. 
The Church of Russia, as well as the Church of Europe, 
has had its Reformation, almost its Revolution, its internal 
parties, and its countless sects. 

The events are few ; the characters are simple ; but we 
shall read in them again and again, as in a parable, our own 
shortcomings, our own controversies, our own losses. The 
parts of the drama are differently cast. The Eastern ele- 
ment comes in to modify and qualify principles which we 
have here carried out to their full length, and beyond it ; 
but it is this very inversion of familiar objects and watch- 
words which is so useful a result of the study of ecclesias- 
tical history, and which is best learned where the course of 
events is at once so unlike and so like to our own, as in the 
Church of Russia. 

III. In Russian history, the religious aspect, on which 
our thoughts must be fixed in these Lectures, is on the one 
its national hand that part of it which is the least known, and 
character. y et on fa e other hand is full of interest, and not 
beyond our apprehension. It has been sometimes main- 
tained by writers on political philosophy, that, however 
important in the formation of individual life and character, 
Religion cannot be reckoned amongst the leading elements 
of European progress and civilisation. I do not enter into 
the general discussion ; but the great Empire of which we 
are speaking, if it has not been civilised, has unquestionably 
been kept alive, by its religious spirit. As in all the Eastern 
nations, so in Russia, the national and the religious elements 
have been identified far more closely than in the West, and 
this identification has been continued, at least outwardly, 
in a more unbroken form. Its religious festivals are still 



Lect. ix. ITS NATIONAL CHARACTER. 



277 



national ; its national festivals are still religious. Probably 
The French tne l ast great historical event which in any Eu- 
invasion. ropean state has externally assumed a religious 
— almost an ecclesiastical — form is nearly the only event 
familiar to most of us in Russian history, namely, the expul- 
sion of the French from Moscow. From the moment when 
Napoleon, according to the popular belief, was struck to the 
ground with awe at the sight of the thousand towers of the 
Holy City, as they burst upon his view when he stood on the 
Hill of Salutation, to the moment when the tidings came of 
the final retreat ' of the Gauls and of the thirty nations,' as 
they are called, the whole atmosphere of the Russian resist- 
ance is religious as much as it is patriotic. The sojourn of 
the French in the Kremlin is already interwoven with reli- 
gious legends, as if it had been an event of the middle ages. 
A magnificent cathedral has been added to the countless 
churches already existing in Moscow to commemorate the 
deliverance. 1 God with us ' is the motto which adorns its 
gateway, as it was the watchword of the armies of the Czar. 
The sects, on the other hand, regarded Na-poleon as their 
deliverer. Some of their most extravagant fanatics formed 
a deputation to him at Moscow. According to them he was 
a natural son of Catherine II., was brought up in a Russian 
university, and still lives concealed in Turkey, but will re- 
appear as a chosen vessel in the moment 1 of their triumph. 
The services of Christmas Day are almost obscured by those 
which celebrate the retreat of the invaders on that same day, 
the 25th of December, 181 2, from the Russian soil ; the last 
of that long succession of national thanksgivings, which be- 
gin with the victory of the Don and the flight of Tamerlane, 
and end with the victory of the Beresina and the flight of 
Napoleon. ' How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, 
' son of the morning ! ' This is the lesson appointed for the 
services of that day. 1 There shall be signs in the sun, and 
* in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress 

1 Revue des Deux Mondes, xv. 6xx. 



278 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



1 of nations with perplexity. Look up and lift up your heads, 
' for your redemption draweth nigh.' This is the Gospel of 
the day. 'Who through faith subdued kingdoms, waxed 
' valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens/ 
This is the Epistle. 

I have dwelt on the religious aspect of this crisis, both 
because it may serve to remind us that there is at least one 
event in the history of the Eastern Church with which we 
are all acquainted ; and also because, coming as it does at 
the end of a series of similar deliverances and celebrations, 
it brings before us one special interest which the Russian 
ecclesiastical history possesses ; namely, its relation, both by 
way of likeness and illustration, to the history of the Jewish 
Church of old. Hardly in any European nation shall we so 
well understand the identity of the religious and national 
life in the ancient Theocracy, as through the struggles of the 
Russian people against their several invaders ; the keenness 
with which they appropriate the history of the Old dispen- 
sation is but the natural result of their (in many respects) 
analogous situation. In the sculptures of the cathedral of 
which I have just spoken as the monument of the deliver- 
ance of Moscow, it is the execution of one and the same 
idea, when the groups from Russian history alternate with 
scenes from the story of Joshua's entrance into Palestine, 
of Deborah encouraging Barak, of David returning from the 
slaughter of Goliath, of the coronation and the grandeur of 
Solomon. 

For these reasons, amongst others, I propose to give a 
rapid view of the main characteristics of the history of the 
Russian Church. Its doctrines, its ritual, and its actual 
condition have been virtually described in connection with 
the rest of Oriental Christendom, and to repeat this, or to 
represent as peculiarly Russian what is common to the whole 
East, would be at once superfluous and misleading. 

The story of the Russian Church divides itself into four 
periods : — 



LECT. IX. 



ITS FOUNDATION. 



279 



I. The period of its foundation, from the close of the 
Periods of 10th century to the beginning of the 14th. 
0 f e theRu y s- II- The P eriod of its consolidation, from the be- 
sian Church, ginningof the 14th century to the middle of the 1 7th. 

III. The period of its transition, from the middle of the 
17th century to the beginning of the 18th. 

IV. The period of its reformation, from the beginning 
of the 1 8th century to the present time. 

We begin, then, with the foundation of the Church in 
the conversion of the Russian nation. 

It is a standing reproach cast by the Latin Church in the 
teeth of her elder sisters of the East, that Constantinople and 
its dependencies have never been centres of missionary opera- 
tions comparable to those which have emanated from Rome, 
or from England. 

The truth of the reproach must, in a great measure, be 
conceded, and arises from causes of which I have spoken 
„. . before. But still it must not be accepted without 

Missions m m r 

from Con- considerable modifications. It was not without 

stantinople ". . 

totheTeu- reason that Gregory Nazianzen, 1 in a passage 
1 e ' which has been happily applied of late to our own 
country, describes Constantinople, even as early as the fourth 
century, as ' a city which is the eye of the world, the strongest 
' by sea and land, the bond of union between East and West, 

* to which the most distant extremes from all sides come to- 

* gether, and to which they look up as to a common centre 
and emporium of the faith.' Even oh the Teutonic races 
one irregular attempt was made by the Byzantine Church, 
which, had it succeeded, would have changed the face of 
Christendom. The mission of the Greek Bishop, Ulfilas, to 
the Gothic tribes, wrought wonders for a time. 2 Down to 
the conversion of Clovis, whatever Christianity they had 
received was from this source ; and when Augustine, in his 

1 i« 755« Quoted in a remarkable tion of the mission of Ulfilas is well dis- 

sermon on the ' Evangelisation of India,' cussed in Professor Miiller's Lectures 

by the Rev. G. H. Curteis, p. 35. on the Science of Language, 2nd edit. 

" The whole of the complicated ques- 179-184. 



280 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



great work on the ' City of God/ celebrates the charity and 
clemency of Alaric and his followers during the sack of 
Rome, we must remember that these Christian graces were 
entirely due to the teaching of Oriental missionaries, heretics 
though they were. The very word ' Church,' as used through- 
out the Teutonic tribes, was often in former times, and is 
still by some learned scholars, derived from the adaptation 
of the Greek word KvpiaKrj, as received from the Byzantine 
preachers. But the rapid changes of events in the West 
swept away any permanent traces of the work of Ulfilas. It 
has now nothing but a philological interest. Its chief 
memorial is the venerable volume of his translation of the 
Bible into the Gothic tongue, the parent, so to speak, of all 
the Teutonic versions of Scripture, — the silver-lettered 
manuscript, fitly deposited in the chief library of the Scandi- 
navian people, in the University of Upsala. 1 

It is not in the Teutonic but in the Sclavonic race that 
the Eastern Church has reaped the richest harvest. The 
to the Scia- conversion of the Sclavonic tribes on the confines 
vomc mbes. Q f ^ By Zan tine Empire is not to be altogether 
overlooked. One name at least of European significance 
has been contributed to ecclesiastical history from this 
quarter. John Huss of Bohemia was a genuine son of the 
Sclavonic family, and it is perhaps more than a mere fancy 
which traces a likeness between his conceptions of reforma- 
tion and those of his more Eastern brethren ; and which 
derives his spiritual pedigree, if on the one hand from our 
own English WyclirTe, on the other hand, in remoter times, 
from the two Greek Bishops to whom I shall have occasion 
again to refer, Cyril and Methodius, the Apostles of Bulgaria 
and Moravia. 

But the centre and life of the Sclavonic race have always 
been in those wilds of Scythia, 2 which have alternately 

1 There are also fragments in the 2 The name ' Russ,' Hebrew Rosk, 

Ambrosian Library at Milan, procured LXX. 'Po>s, unfortunately mistrans- 

from the monastery of Bobbio. (Ib. lated in the English version ' the chief/ 

184.) first appears in Ezek. xxxviii. 2, 3, 



LECT. IX. 



ITS FOUNDATION. 



28l 



invited or sent forth conquerors to and from the adjacent 
Conversion seats °f civilisation in Greece or Asia Minor. The 
of Russia, story of the Russian conversion may be divided 
into two portions, the legendary and the historical ; and each 
portion in the present instance is so characteristic of the 
nation, and so illustrative of like events in the West, that I 
will not scruple to dwell upon each of them in detail. 

i. I have before spoken of the peculiar connection of 
Oriental Christianity with the natural features of the regions 
Legendary which it has traversed ; and in all countries this 
account. connection is more visible in the primitive stages 
of nations than in their subsequent growth. The geographi- 
cal and historical relations of a country so monotonous as 
Russia are indeed far less striking than in the diversified 
forms of Greece and Syria, of Egypt and Chaldsea. Endless 
forests, endless undulating plains, invite no local associations 
and foster no romantic legends. But there is one feature 
of Russian scenery truly grand, its network of magnificent 
rivers. These, important for its political and commercial 
interests, are the threads with which its religious destinies 
have been always curiously interwoven. Turn your mind's 
eye to the vast stream of the Dnieper, the old Borysthenes, 
as it rolls into the Euxine. Over the banks of that stream, 
five hundred miles from its mouth, hangs a low range of 
hills, low for any other country, but high for the level steppes 
Voyage of of Russia, and therefore called Kieff, 'the moun- 
s. Andrew, tain.' From that mountain, we are told, a noble 
prospect commands the course of the river; and up the 
course of that river, on his way from Sinope to Rome, came, 
according to the ancient legend, Andrew, the Apostle of 
Greece, the Apostle of Scythia : and as he rose in the morn- 
ing and saw the heights of KierT, on which he planted the 
first cross, he said,— 'See you those hills? For on those 
' hills shall hereafter shine forth the grace of God. There 

xxxix. x. It is the only name of a modern nation found in the Old Testament. 
(See Gesenius, in voce.) 



282 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. IX. 



* shall be a great city, and God shall cause many churches 
'to rise within it.' 1 And so he passed on by the north to 
' Italy. 

But northward another legend meets us of more grotesque 
shape. A saint of doubtful name and origin 2 started from 
Voyage of Italy on one of those voyages which mediaeval 
s. Antony. cre dulity delighted to invent and to receive. He 
was thrown into the Tiber with a millstone round his neck, 
and on or with this millstone passed out of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean ; through the islands of 
the Baltic he passed on into the Neva ; through the Neva 
he reached the Lake of Ladoga ; from the Ladoga Lake he 
floated into the broad VolkhorT ; and from the Volkhoff, on 
the shores of the Lake of Ilmen, he found himself by the 
walls of the great Novgorod, the irresistible republic of Old 
Russia, the precursor of the northern capital of the new 
Empire of Peter. 

These are fables of which every line is a quaint lesson in 
geography. But they also dimly foreshadow, even as geo- 
graphy itself foreshadows, the fortunes of the Empires and 
Churches which are founded upon them. The Dnieper and 
the Neva are the two inlets by which life and light have 
penetrated into the vast deserts of Russia, from the East and 
from the West ; through the race of the Norman Ruric, and 
through the race of the Byzantine Caesars ; through Vladimir 
in the first age, and through Peter in the last age, of the 
Russian Church. Kieff and Petersburg form the two ex- 
tremities of Russian history, ecclesiastical as well as civil. 
The central sacred city of Moscow forms the point of transi- 
tion, the point of contact between them, and will form the 
chief scene of the second and third periods of the Russian 
Church, as Petersburg of the fourth, and Kieff of the first. 

1 See Nestor (ed. Schlozer), ii. 93. 2 He was either S. Nicholas or An- 

See also the strange legend which derives tony the Roman A cup is shown in the 

the name of Russia from S. Andrew's treasury of the Assumption Church as 

exclamation when put into the hot vapour brought by him. See Travels of Maca- 

bath: "ISpSxra, 'I sweat.' Travels of nus, ii. 192, 193. 
Macarius, ii. 186. 



LECT. IX. 



ITS FOUNDATION. 



283 



2. From this legendary beginning I pass to the actual 
completion of the conversion of Russia as it is described by 
Historical Nestor, 1 himself a monk of Kieff, who occupies in 
theconver- tne history of Russia almost the same position as 
sion - that held in our own by the Venerable Bede. 

The time coincides with a great epoch in Europe, the 
close of the tenth century. When throughout the West the 
end of the world was fearfully expected, when the Latin 
Church was overclouded with the deepest despondency, 
when the Papal See had become the prey of ruffians and 
profligates, then it was that the Eastern Church, silently 
and almost unconsciously, bore into the world her mightiest 
offspring. 

The one seed of energy and activity that had been in 
the ninth century scattered over Europe had also fallen upon 
Ruric Russia. The Norman race, which played so im- 
a.d. 862. portant a part in the civil and religious history of 
the West, as the allies or protectors of the Papal See, and 
as the founders of new dynasties in France, in Italy, in 
Sicily, and in England, had also established themselves on 
Vladimir, tne throne of Russia in the family of Ruric. It is 
a.d. 980. t0 j^jg descendant Vladimir that the Russian 
Church looks back as its founder. In the conversion of 
each of the European nations there is a kind of foretaste or 
reflection of the national character and religion, which gives 
to the study of them an interest over and above their in- 
trinsic importance. The conversations of Ethelbert with 
Augustine, and of Clovis with Remigius, present peculiar 
elements characteristic respectively of the French and Eng- 
lish people. This is eminently the case with the conversion 
of Vladimir. And the account has further these two special 
advantages. First, though not actually by an eye-witness, it 
is yet by a narrator within the next generation, and is thus 
given with a detail which may serve to illustrate all like 
events. Nowhere else shall we see so clearly the mixture of 

1 He lived A.D. 1050 to 1116. (Nestor, ed. Schlozer, i. 7, 8, 9.) 



284 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. Iect. ix. 



craft and simplicity, of rough barbarian se and wild 
superstition ; of savage force bowing down before the mere 
display of a civilised religion. We may be grieved, as we 
read, that through such weak and trivial means such great 
results should be brought about ; but every such case is a 
repetition on a gigantic scale, and in a various sense, of the 
parable of the grain of mustard seed. Secondly, the story 
of the conversion of Vladimir gives us an opportunity, such 
as we rarely possess, of a general survey of the whole of 
Christendom, from a contemporary point of view. He, in 
this position won for him by his ancestors or himself, had 
become the object of attention to the different forms of 
religion then prevailing in the world. He is approached by 
each in turn. He approaches each in turn. We have, if not 
the very words in which he and they described their mutual 
impressions, yet at least the words in which one who lived 
almost within their generation thought it likely that they 
would have spoken. 

Let us, as nearly as possible, follow the narrative of 
Nestor, and apply as we proceed the remarks which I have 
just made. 

Whatever beginnings of the Christian faith had already 
been imparted to Russia here and there had made but little 
permanent impression. Adelbert, the great Western mis- 
sionary of this period, attacked the Sclavonic Pagans, not in 
Russia, but in the Isle of Rugen, 1 on the extreme point of 
which a heathen temple remained till the twelfth century. 
a.d. 866. Oskold and Dir may have been terrified into 
a.d. 965. baptism by a storm at Constantinople ; Olga may 
have been attracted to it by a sense of policy ; but her 
grandson Vladimir was a ferocious prince, as much distin- 
guished by his zeal for the rude idolatry of his countrymen 
as for his savage crimes. 

To him, we are told, midway between the 6000th and 
7000th year of the world according to the ancient Eastern 

1 Neander, vi. 70. 



LECT. ix. CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR. 



285 



era, in the year 986 according to the Christian era of the 
West, there came envoys from the different religions 
a.d. 986. ^ e t j ien k nown wor id. 

First came the Bulgarian Mussulmans from the Volga. 1 
'Wise and prudent prince as thou art, thou knowest neither 
M; . ' law nor religion. Believe in ours, and honour 
from Bui- ' Mahomet' — ' In what does your religion con- 
" ' sist ? * asked Vladimir. 'We believe in God,' 

they replied, ' but we believe also in what the Prophet 
' teaches. Be circumcised, abstain from pork, drink n© 
* wine ; and after death choose out of seventy beautiful 
1 wives the most beautiful.' Vladimir listened to them for 
the last reason. But that which he did not like was circum- 
cision, the abstinence from pork, and above all the prohibi- 
tion of drinking. ' Drinking is the great delight of Russians,' 
he said ; ' we cannot live without it.' 

Next came the representatives of Western Christendom. 
The question whence they came, or were thought to come, 
From the wavers in the story. From the Pope ? From 
West - Germany? From the sect then widely known, 
now almost forgotten, premature Protestants, the Pauli- 
cians ? 2 ' The Pope,' they said, ' begs us to tell you, your 
country is like ours, but not your religion. Ours is the 
' right. We fear God, who made the heaven and earth, the 
' stars and the moon, and every living creature, whilst thy 
' Gods are of wood.' — ' What does your law com- 

A.D. 986. . 

'mand?' asked Vladimir. 'We fast,' they said, 
' to the best of our power ; and when anyone eats or drinks, 
' he does it in honour of God, as we have been told by our 
1 master, S. Paul.' 3 ' Go home ! ' said Vladimir ; ' our 
' fathers did not believe in your religion, nor receive it from 
' the Pope.' 

Next, on being informed of this, came some Jews (who 

1 Karamsin, i. 259. sect itself, see Gibbon, c. 54. Their 

2 Ibid. i. 260. persecution by the Empress Theodora is 
s Compare the expressions respecting one of the worst instances of Eastern 

S. Paul in Karamsin, i. 399- For the intolerance. 



286 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



lived among the Khozars). 1 ' We have heard say that the 
... . ' Mahometans and the Christians have tried to per- 

Mission . , r 

from the « suade thee to adopt their belief. The Christians 
* believe in Him whom we have crucified. We 

* believe in one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' 
— ' In what does your law consist ? ' asked Vladimir. * Our 

* law requires circumcision, prohibits pork and hare, and 
' enjoins the observance of Saturday.' — ' Where then is your 

* country ? ' 'At Jerusalem.' — ' What is Jerusalem ? ' ' God 
' was wroth with our forefathers ; He dispersed us for our 
1 sins throughout the world, and our country has fallen into 
1 the hands of Christians.' — ' What,' said Vladimir, ' you 
' wish to teach others — you whom God has rejected and 
4 dispersed ? If God had loved you and your law He would 
1 never have scattered you abroad ; do you wish, perhaps, 
4 that we should suffer the same ? ' 

In each of these answers we detect the characteristic 
temper of the Russian — his love of drinking, his tenacity 
of ancestral customs, his belief in the Divine right of 
success. 

Another agency now appears on the scene. It is not a 
nameless barbarian, as before. It is, so the chronicler tells 
Mission us > <a philosopher from Greece.' The glory of 
from Greece. Q rec i ari culture still hung about his ancient seats, 
and the fittest harbinger of Christian truth, even in dealing 
with the savage Vladimir, was thought to be a 

A.D. 986. ^ , 0 . . . . . 

Greek ; not a priest or a missionary, but a phi- 
losopher. 

4 We have heard,' said he, 'that the Mahometans have 
4 sent to lead you to adopt their belief. Their religion and 
4 their practices are abominations in the face of heaven 
4 and earth, and judgment will fall upon them, as of old 
on 4 Sodom and Gomorrah. This is what they do who call 
4 Mahomet a prophet' 

This calls forth the first moral spark that we have seen 

1 For the Jews amongst the Khozars, see Nestor (French trans, p. 118). 



lect. ix. CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR. 



287 



in Vladimir's mind. He spat upon the ground and said, 

* This is shameful.' 

'We have also heard/ said the philosopher, 'that mes- 
c sengers have come from Rome to teach you. Their belief 
' differs somewhat from ours. They celebrate the mass with 
' unleavened bread, therefore they have not the true re- 

* ligion.' Such was the point on which the two greatest 
Churches of the world had been torn asunder, and into 
which Vladimir did not further inquire. He then took up 
the word himself and said : ' I have also had Jews here who 
' said that the Germans and Greeks believe on Him whom 

* we crucified.' The philosopher assented. ' Why was He 
4 crucified ? ' asked Vladimir. ' If you will listen,' replied 
the philosopher, ' 1 will tell you all from the beginning.' 
' With pleasure,' replied Vladimir. And the philosopher 
then proceeded to relate all the Divine acts and deeds from 
the beginning of the world ; the whole course, we may say, 
of ecclesiastical history, coming to a characteristic close in 
the Seventh General Council. He then defined the true 
faith, and spoke of the future reward of the just and pun- 
ishment of the impious, and at the same time showed to 
Vladimir a tablet on which was painted the scene of the 
Last Judgment. Then, showing him on the right 1 the 
just, who, filled with joy, were entering into Paradise, he 
made him remark on the left the sinners who were going 
into hell. Vladimir, as he looked at the picture, heaved a 
sigh and said, ' Happy are those who are on the right ; woe 
' to the sinners who are on the left.' ' If you wish,' said 
the philosopher, 'to enter with the just who are on the 
' right, consent to be baptized.' Vladimir reflected pro- 
foundly, and said, * I will wait yet a little while.' For he 
wished first to be instructed about each religion. But he 
loaded the philosopher with presents and sent him away. 

Vladimir in the next year sent for the nobles and elders, 
and told them of the different interviews. ' You know, O 

1 See the corresponding story of Bogoris and Methodius. (Robertson, ii. 344.) 



288 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. IX. 



' Prince,' they said, ' that no one talks evil of his religion, 
1 but that all, on the contrary, praise their own. If you 
' wish to know the exact truth, you have wise men ; send 
' them to examine the faith of each and the manner of their 
1 worship.' 

We need not follow them throughout their journey. 
They reported that the Mussulmans prayed with their heads 
covered, and that their stench was insupportable ; and that 
the German and Roman churches had no ornaments nor 
beauty, though better than the Mussulman mosques. 

But the nobles insisted that the decision should not be 
made without knowing first what was the Greek religion ; 
Mission to anc ^ accor( iingly the envoys proceeded to the city 
Constanti- which they call Tzarogorod. In that barbarous 
name we recognise 'the city of the Czar,' or 
'King,' the great Constantinople. 1 What it was at that 
period, the splendour of its ceremonial, both of Church 
and state, even in the most minute detail, is known to us 
ad 987 ^ rom t ^ ie nearr y contemporary account of the 
German embassy from Otho. Basil Porphyro- 
genitus 2 was on the throne with his brother Constantine ; 
and his words, in giving orders to the Patriarch to prepare 
for a magnificent reception of the strangers, indicate more 
than many treatises the importance he attached to the out- 
ward show of the ceremonial of the Church, as his grand- 
father had to the outward show of the ceremonial of the 
court. 'Let them see,' he said, 'the glory of our God.' 
The service was that of a high festival, either of S. John 
Chrysostom, or of the Death of the Virgin. 

It was in the church — magnificent even now in its 



1 According to the fragment of the 
Byzantine Chronicles in Karamsin (i. 
393), they went also ' to the Patriarch of 
Rome, who is called the Pope,' and re- 
turned with the hope of persuading 
Vladimir to join the Latin Church. The 
ground on which the nobles desired to 
hear of the Greek religion was ' that 



Constantinople was more illustrious than 
Rome.' Compare a (spurious) letter by 
Vladimir's physician. Ibid. 354. 

2 Karamsin, i. 392. Also called 
1 Bulgaroctonus,' from his savage con- 
quest of the Bulgarians. See, for his 
reign of fifty years, Finlay's Byzantine 
Empire, bk. ii. c. ii. § 2. 



lect. ix. CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR. 



289 



fallen state, then all gorgeous with gold and mosaics — of 
Church of S. Sophia. Even had they been as far as Rome 
s. Sophia, itself, they would have seen nothing equal to it. 
S. Peter's, as it now is, was far in the future. Cologne 
Cathedral was not yet born. The boast of Justinian was 
still the masterpiece of Christian architecture. 

The Russian envoys were placed in a convenient 
position. The incense smoked, the chants resounded, the 
Patriarch was in his most splendid vestments. One inci- 
dent is preserved in a Byzantine annalist which the Russian 
chronicler has omitted. 'The Russians were struck,' he 
says, ' by the multitude of lights and the chanting of the 
' hymns ; but what most filled them with astonishment was 
' the appearance of the deacons and sub-deacons issuing 
' from the sanctuary, with torches in their hands ; ' and, as 
we happen to know from an earlier source, 1 with white linen 
wings on their shoulders, at whose presence the people fell 
on their knees and cried, ' Kyrie Eleison ! ' The Russians 
took their guides by the hand, and said : 1 All that we have 
4 seen is awful and majestic, but this is super- 

A.D. 987. , TT _ , J ... 

' natural. We have seen young men with wings, 
' in dazzling robes, who, without touching the ground, 
1 chanted in the air, Holy ! holy ! holy ! and this is what has 
1 most surprised us.' The guides replied (and the Byzan- 
tine historian repeats it without changing the tone of his 
narrative, even in the slightest degree) : 1 What ! do you 
not know that angels come down from heaven to mingle in 
our services?' 'You are right,' said the simple-minded 
Russians ; ' we want no further proof ; send us home again.' 

It is a striking instance of the effect produced on a 
barbarous people by the union of religious awe and outward 
magnificence, and the dexterity with which the Byzantine 
courtiers turned the credulity of the Russian envoys to 



1 Quoted in Bunsen's ' Christianity 
and Mankind,' vii. 45. The same ten- 
dency to impose upon foreigners appears 
in the account of Luitprand's embassy, 



when he was received with the roaring 
of golden lions and the warbling of 
golden birds. (Gibbon, c. 53.) 



290 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



account illustrates the origin of many of the miracles of the 
middle ages ; not wholly fraud, nor wholly invention, but a 
union of the two ; a symbolical ceremony taken for a super- 
natural occurrence, and the mistake fostered, not by de- 
liberate imposture, but by the difficulty of resisting the 
immense temptation to deception which such mistakes 
afforded. A like confusion supports to this day the sup- 
posed miracle of the Holy Fire at Jerusalem. 

As in many similar cases, the results far outlasted the 
sin or the weakness of the first beginning. * We knew not/ 
said the envoys on their return, 1 whether we were not in 
' heaven ; in truth, it would be impossible on earth to find 

* such riches and magnificence. We cannot describe to 
' you all that we have seen. We can only believe that there 

* in all likelihood one is in the presence of God, and that 
f the worship of other countries is there entirely eclipsed. 
1 We shall never forget so much grandeur. Whosoever has 
' seen so sweet a spectacle will be pleased with nothing 
' elsewhere. It is impossible for us to remain where we 
c are.' 

The rest of the story may be shortly told. With some 
few Eastern touches, it is not unlike the national conver- 
sions of the West. Vladimir, still in a state of 
hesitation, besieged the city of Cherson in the 
Crimea, and, like Clovis, vowed that he would be baptized 
if he succeeded. He then sent to demand from 
a.d. 9 88. E m p eror Basil the hand of his sister Anne in 

marriage, under the promise of his own conversion, and 
under the threat of doing to Constantinople as he had done 
to Cherson. With some difficulty Anne was induced to 
sacrifice herself to the barbarian prince, in the hope of 
averting so great a danger and effecting so great a good. 
Her sister Theophano had already been established on the 
throne of the German Otho. She acquired a more lasting 
fame as the channel through which Christianity penetrated 
into Russia. 



lect. ix. CONVERSION OF VLADIMIR. 29 1 



He was baptized 1 accordingly at Cherson, and then 
issued orders for a great baptism of his people at KiefT. 
Baptism of They also hesitated for a short time. But a like 
Vladimir, argument, combined with the threat of the Grand- 
Duke, convinced them also. The huge wooden idol Peroun 
was dragged over the hills at a horse's tail, mercilessly 
scourged by twelve mounted pursuers, and thrown into the 
Dnieper, where it was guided and pushed along the stream 
till it finally disappeared down the rapids in a spot long 
afterwards known as the Bay of Peroun. The whole people 
of KiefT were immersed in the same river, some sitting on 
the banks, some plunged in, others swimming, whilst the 
priests read the prayers. ' It was a sight,' says Nestor, 
' wonderfully curious and beautiful to see ; and when the 

* whole people were baptized, each one returned to his own 

* house.' The spot was consecrated by the first Christian 

* church, and KiefT, which had already, as we have seen 

* from old traditions, been the Glastonbury, became hence- 
1 forward the Canterbury, of the Russian Empire. 

Let me dwell on the points of this story which contain 
its singular significance as the foundation of the 
Russian Church. 
1. Observe the immense influence of Constantinople. 
The effect of the Roman ceremonial on the Teutonic bar- 
j fl f barians was powerful ; but the effect of the Byzan- 
Constanti- tine ritual on the Sclavonic barbarians must have 
been more powerful still. They returned believing 
that they had caught a glimpse of heaven itself. They 
clung to the recollections and to the support of that mag- 
nificent city, as children round the feet of a mother. In 
modern times and in political matters the connection be- 
tween Russia and Constantinople has been tarnished by 
baser motives, by constant suspicions, by the degradation of 
the one and the ambition of the other. But in earlier times, 
and in ecclesiastical matters, the relations between the two 

1 For the accompanying miracle, see Mouravieff, pp. 14, 354. 
U 2 



292 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



-were always preserved with filial fidelity ; the more remark- 
able from the reversal of their respective positions in every- 
thing else. It is this which makes the Russian Church so 
truly Eastern. France, Spain, Germany, have all in diverse 
degrees ceased to represent the type of the Roman Church, 
to which they owe their first faith. But in the Cathedral at 
Moscow is still maintained, in essential points, the likeness 
of the worship which won the hearts of Vladimir's ambas- 
sadors in the Cathedral of S. Sophia ; and, although the 
jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople has been 
gradually relaxed in proportion to the increasing power of 
the Russian hierarchy and nation, yet the outward bond 
between the two Churches has never been broken. The 
Metropolitans of Russia were for five centuries either 
Byzantines or closely allied to Byzantium. Every succes- 
sive change in their condition since has been confirmed 
by the Church of Constantinople. The transference of the 
see from KiefT to Moscow, the elevation of the Primacy 
into a Patriarchate, and finally the transformation of the 
Patriarchate into a Synod, have all been recognised by 
the Eastern Patriarchs themselves ; and, whatever inward 
jealousy they may have of their powerful neighbour, there is 
no ground for the popular Western notion that the Church 
of Russia is in a state of antagonism to the other Churches 
of the East. Whatever its errors, or its crimes, or its ex- 
cellences, it cannot be divided from the general fortunes of 
Oriental Christendom. The union of Vladimir with Anne 
is still a living power. 

2. I have elsewhere described the inheritance of Eastern 
doctrine and practice which Russia thus received and 
developed in common with the other Oriental 
for sacred Churches. But two or three points stand out 
pictures. conspicuously in the history of the conversion. 
One such characteristic of the Eastern Church generally, 
but eminently characteristic of Russian ecclesiastical history, 
is the influence exercised over this its first beginnings by the 



LECT. IX. 



SACRED PICTURES. 



293 



effect of the sacred pictures on the mind of the Grand- 
Duke. That picture of the Last Judgment inaugurated, so 
to speak, the influence of its innumerable successors of the 
same or of other sacred subjects, down to the present day. 
No veneration of relics or images in the West can convey 
any adequate notion of the veneration for pictures in 
Russia. It is the main support and stay of their religious 
faith and practice, it is like the rigid observance of Sunday 
to a modern Scot, or the Auto da Fe to an ancient Spaniard, 
or fasting to a Copt, or singing of hymns to Methodists. 
Everywhere, in public and in private, the sacred picture 
is the consecrating element. In the corner of every room, 
at the corner of every street, over gateways, in offices, in 
steamers, in stations, in taverns, is the picture hung, with 
the lamp burning before it. In domestic life it plays the 
part of the family Bible, of the wedding gift, of the birthday 
present, of the ancestral portrait. In the national life it is 
the watchword, the flag, which has supported the courage of 
generals and roused the patriotism of troops. It has gone 
forth to meet the Tartars, or the Poles, or the French. It 
has thus been carried by Demetrius, by Peter, by SuwarorT, 
by Kutusoff. A taste, a passion for pictures, not as works 
of art, but as emblems, as lessons, as instructions, is thus 
engendered and multiplied in common life beyond all 
example elsewhere. The symbolical representation of 
sacred truth extends even to the natural world. A dove or 
pigeon is considered as a living picture (' obraz ') of the 
Holy Spirit, and therefore no Russian peasant will eat one. 
Even a Syrian traveller from the distant East, in the seven- 
teenth century, observed what no less strikes an English 
traveller from the West in the nineteenth century, how (to 
use his own words) — 

' The Muscovites are vastly attached to the love of pictures, 
neither regarding the beauty of the painting nor the skill of the 
painter, for with them a beautiful and an ugly painting are all one, 
and they honour and bow to them perpetually, though the figure 



294 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. IX. 



be only a daub of children, or a sketch upon a leaf of paper ; so 
that, of a whole army, there is not a single man but carries in 
his knapsack a gaudy picture within a simple cover, with which 
he never parts, and wherever he halts he sets it up on a piece of 
wood and worships it.' 1 

And when from common life we pass to the church, still 
the same peculiarity presents itself. Frequently the groups 
of passers-by may be seen looking at the elaborate represen- 
tations of this or that Scriptural event or legendary scene, 
or a New Testament parable or an Old Testament miracle. 
One better informed than the rest will explain it to his com- 
panions, and these pictorial communications are probably 
the chief sources of religious instruction imparted to the 
mass of the Russian peasantry. Or enter within a church, 
at least any church such as those at Moscow, which best 
represent the national feeling. There the veneration has 
reached a pitch which gives an aspect to the whole building 
as unlike any European church as the widest difference of 
European churches can separate each from each. From 
top to bottom, from side to side, walls and roof and screen 
and columns are a mass of gilded pictures ; not one of any 
artistic value, not one put in for the sake of show or effect, 
but all cast in the same ancient mould, or overcast with the 
same venerable hue ; and each one, from the smallest figure 
in the smallest compartment to the gigantic faces which look 
down with their large open eyes from the arched vaults above, 
performing its own part, and bearing a relation to the whole. 
One only other style of sacred architecture is recalled by this 
strange sight. It is as if four columns (for there are but 
four in an Orthodox Eastern church) had been transplanted 
from the mighty forest of pillars in the great temple of 
Egyptian Thebes. Like those pillars, though on a humbler 
scale, these four columns rise up, and round and round they 
are painted, with ever-recurring pairs, as there of Egyptian 
gods, so here of Christian martyrs. And as the walls there 

1 Travels of Macarius, ii. 50. 



LECT. IX. 



SACRED PICTURES. 



295 



are hung from head to foot with battle-pieces or sacred pro- 
cessions, so here with Apostles, Prophets, Patriarchs, para- 
bles, history, legend. The Seven Councils of the Church 
follow in exact and uniform order, closing on the western 
end with a huge representation of the Last Judgment, such 
as converted Vladimir. In one sense the resemblance to 
Egypt is purely accidental. But in another sense it is almost 
inevitable. Egypt and Russia are the only two great nations 
in which pictures or pictorial emblems have entered so deeply 
into the national life and religious instruction of the people. 
Hieroglyphics and pictures constituted more than half the 
learning of those grown-up children of the ancient world ; 
they still constitute more than half the education of these 
grown-up children of the modern world. It may be ques- 
tioned whether an uninstructed Englishman or an unin- 
structed Russian would be most inclined to look upcn the 
other as an absolute Pagan, the one for never being able to 
say his prayers without pictures, the other for never saying 
his prayers with them. And when we remember that some 
of these pictures have, besides their interest as the emblems 
of truth to a barbarian and childlike people, acquired the 
historical associations involved in the part they have taken 
in great national events, it is not surprising that the com- 
bination of religious and patriotic feelings in Russia should 
have raised their veneration to a pitch by us almost incon- 
ceivable. The history of a single picture becomes almost the 
history of the nation. Brought by Vladimir from Cherson, 
believed to have been painted by Constantine the Great, 
used on every great occasion of national thanksgiving and 
deliverance, deposited in the most sacred of Russian cathe- 
drals, the picture, as it is called, of i Our Lady of Vladimir ' 
represents exactly the idea of an ancient palladium ; whilst 
the fact that it is not a graven statue vindicates it in their 
eyes from all likeness to a Pagan idol. It is a sentiment 
which, according to Western views, cannot be imitated, but 
which, if only in order to be avoided, must be understood 
and explained. 



296 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



3. Another prominent feature of the conversion is the 
fact that alone of all the European nations (unless Spain and 
influence of Hungary are counted exceptions) Russia was Chris- 
authonty. tianised without the agency of missionaries, and 
chiefly by the direct example, influence, or command (which- 
ever we choose to call it) of its Prince. There is Martin the 
Apostle of Gaul, and Augustine of England, and Boniface 
of Germany; but there is no Apostle of Russia except 
Vladimir, who bears the same title as that of Constantine, 
' Isapostolos ; ' ' Vladimir equal to an Apostle J 

It is a remarkable example of the religious aspect of the 
temporal sovereign, which, though cherished everywhere in 
the Eastern Churches, has, as we shall hereafter see, always 
exercised a more powerful influence in Russia, from the pecu- 
liarly docile and yielding character of the Sclavonic race. 
'Our country is large and fertile, but we have no order 
' amongst us. Come amongst us to reign and to rule over 
'us.' 1 Such was the address of the Russians to the Norman 
chief Ruric, their first sovereign. And in like manner the 
same argument of higher authority carried with it their con- 
version. ' If the Greek religion had not been good,' said 
the nobles to Vladimir, ' it would not have been adopted by 
' your grandmother Olga, wisest of mortals.' And again : 
'If baptism were not good,' said the people of Kieff, 'it 
would not have been adopted by our princes and nobles.' 
As far as the clergy were concerned, they were mere passive 
instruments in the hands of the prince and the people. 
There were no tithes, with one single exception which 
proves the rule. They lived, as they have lived ever since, 
on the offerings of their flocks. The Russian establishment 
is a combination, difficult to square with our preconceived 
English notions, of the strictest form of a State religion with 
the widest application of the voluntary principle. On one 
side of this aspect of Russian religion, the most hopeful 
of all the peculiarities of the Eastern Church, I have dwelt 

Haxthausen., iii. 34. 



lect. ix. VERNACULAR TRANSLATION OF BIBLE. 297 



before; namely, the vast weight and responsibility thrown 
into the hands of its laymen by the principles of the Church 
itself. The other side, the dependence of the clergy on 
these casual gifts, is a cause of grave anxiety to those who 
wish to redeem the Russian Church from the charges of 
proverbial avarice and mendicancy which this system has 
engendered. 

4. There is another feature of the conversion not dis- 
tinctly brought out in the narrative of Nestor. It has been 
often observed that the spread of the Christian 

Vernacular m . . 

translation religion was more rapid and more easy in Russia 

of the Bible. . & . r _ „ T . t 3 . AT 

than in any country of Western Christendom. Mo 
violent collision, no martyrdom, either of Christian or Pagan, 
marked the progress of the new religion. The docile cha- 
racter of the people, the outward and ceremonial nature of 
that form of Christianity which they received, the slight hold 
of their old mythology, may all account for this. But it 
would be wrong to omit one element in the transaction, on 
which much stress is laid by later Russian historians, 1 and 
which undoubtedly was a matter of great moment in the 
mode of exhibiting Christianity to the nation. In every 
country converted by the Latin Church the Scriptures 
and the Liturgy had been introduced, not in the vernacular 
language of the original or conquered population, but in 
the language of the government or missionaries, the Latin 
language of the old Empire and new Church of Rome. Our 
own sense and experience are sufficient to tell us what a 
formidable obstacle must have been created by this single 
cause to the mutual and general understanding of the new 
faith ; what barriers between the conquerors and conquered, 
between the educated and the vulgar, above all, between 
the clergy and the laity. The ill effects of the tardy trans- 
lation of our own Bible and Prayer-book into Irish amply 



1 For the whole of this view of the (as communicated to me in a MS. trans- 
effect of the Sclavonic translation, see lation by the Rev. R. W. Blackmore). 
Oustralieff's History of Russia, c. i. § 5 



298 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



indicate the probable results. In the Eastern Church, on 
the other hand, a contrary method was everywhere followed. 
The same principle which had led Jerome, in his cell at 
Bethlehem, to translate the Bible into what was then the 
one known language of the West, was adopted by the 
Oriental Church with regard to all the nations that came 
within its sphere. Hence, in the remote East, sprang up 
the Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Ethiopic versions ; hence, 
in the only attempt (which I have already described) made 
by the Eastern Church on the Western barbarians, Ulfilas 
immortalised himself by producing the only widespread 
translation of the Scriptures which existed in any 
a.d. 863. \\r es tern language till the times of WyclirTe. In 
like manner, at the approach of the Greek Church to the 
Sclavonic nations on the shores of the Danube, the first 
labour of the missionaries, Cyril (or Constantine) and 
Methodius, was to invent an alphabet for the yet unwritten 
language of the Sclavonic tribes, in order at once to render 
into this language the whole of the New Testament, except 
the Apocalypse, and the whole of the Psalter in the Old. 
Bulgaria, by its position on the frontiers of the Greek and 
Latin Churches, was a constant source of discord between 
them. On this occasion the use of the version already 
sanctioned by Constantinople was also referred to Rome, 
and was allowed on grounds which in fact justify the use of 
vernacular translations everywhere ; though it was afterwards 
condemned by the same authority, with that remarkable in- 
consistency and fluctuation which have always distinguished 
the policy of the Papal chair on the subject of the circula- 
tion of the Bible. It was sanctioned on the ground that the 
Psalmist says, ' Let everything that hath breath praise the 
? Lord,' that is, in the different languages. It was con- 
demned on the ground that Methodius was a heretic, by a 
strange confusion between him and his Arian predecessor, 
Ulfilas. 1 

1 For the authorities, see Gieseler, 3rd period, 2nd sec. § 38. 



lect. ix. VERNACULAR TRANSLATION OF BIBLE. 299 



The translation of Cyril had been in existence for a 
century before the conversion of Vladimir, and was thus at 
Russian once ready for use by the Greek Bishops and clergy 
language, w h 0 accompanied the Princess Anne to Kieff. Of 
these hardly anything is known. But Cyril and Methodius, 
if any one, must be considered by anticipation as the first 
Christian teachers of Russia : their rude alphabet first in- 
structed the Russian nation in letters, and by its quaint 
Greek characters still testifies in every Russian book, and 
on every Russian house or shop, the Greek source of the 
religion and literature of the Empire. The Russian language 
was thus elevated to a dignity unknown at that time to any 
of the barbarous dialects of Western Europe ; and such as 
was only imparted, at a much later period, by Dante to the 
Italian, and by Luther's translation of the Bible to the 
German, language. The ancient Sclavonic speech, thus 
attaining almost at a single bound to the perfection else- 
where reached only by slow degrees and laborious efforts, 
has now in turn fallen behind the growth of the modern 
language of Russia ; and the same difficulty has arisen, or is 
fast arising, which besets the use of the ancient phraseology 
of the sacred books of all, even the most vernacular, lan- 
guages. But the work of Cyril and Methodius gave at once 
a national character to the Scriptures and Liturgy, and a 
religious character to the literature and language of Russia, 
which have never been effaced ; and, in the first instance, 
must have kept alive, before the minds of the people and 
clergy, both a sense of their common religious interest, and 
a knowledge of the leading truths of Christianity, such as 
could hardly have been possessed by the contemporary 
Churches and nations of the West. 

To some such cause as this, combined with the natural 
vigour of the people, must be ascribed the fact that the 
Christianity of Russia, introduced by these purely external 
and formal influences, early exhibited a practical strength 
hardly to be recognised in the other Churches of the East, 



30o 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. ix. 



and sometimes equal even to the energetic zeal of Western 
Christendom. 

Of this early period there are two Princes whom the 
Russian Church has dignified with the name of saint. The 
first, Vladimir, its founder in the tenth century ; the second, 
Alexander of the Neva, so called from the victory in which 

he repulsed the Swedes on the banks of that river 
' I247 ' in the thirteenth century. The first has found his 
rest at KiefT ; the other sleeps in a magnificent shrine in 
the capital which centuries afterwards rose beside his own 
Neva. Each of them, no doubt, has his claims to venera- 
tion. The savage character of Vladimir seems to have been 
tamed and softened by his conversion. Alexander seems to 
have united in an eminent degree the virtues of the soldier 
and the pacificator. But, as we often observe in the history 
both of the Western and Eastern Churches, the title of ' saint ' 
has not been the surest index of true Christian excellence ; 
and, on the whole, there are two other Princes of this age 

whose memory has a better savour than that cf the 
a.d. 1017. royal saints just named. One is the legislator 

Jaroslaff, who introduced into Russia the Byzantine system 
of Canon Law, and the first beginnings of Christian educa- 
viadimir tion. The other is Vladimir the Second, or, as he 
£s 5 T.d. is usually called, probably from the Byzantine Em- 

peror of the same surname, Vladimir Monomachus, 1 
whose date may be fixed in our minds by his marriage with 
Gytha, 2 daughter of our own Harold. The details of his life 
can only be understood through the intricate and obscure 
events of his time. But his general character may be suffi- 
ciently gathered from his own words, in the dying injunctions 
left to his sons. They show that, underneath the load of 
Byzantine ceremonial and the roughness of Russian bar- 
barism, there lived a spark of true manly goodness ; and 
that he was not unworthy of the model of a just and re- 
ligious ruler in the 101st Psalm, which was sent to him by 

' Mouravieff, p. 20. 2 Karamsin, ii. 211. 



lect. ix. THE FIRST CHRISTIAN PRINCES. 



SOI 



the Russian Primate, 1 with an exhortation to learn it by 
heart, to meditate upon it, and to fashion his government 
accordingly. His love of the Psalter, his rapid travelling, 
the turn for foreign languages, the union of fierceness and 
devotion, all go to make up a genuine portraiture of a Rus- 
sian Christian of early days : — 

' O my children, praise God and love men. For it is not 
fasting, nor solitude, nor monastic life, that will procure you 
eternal life, but only doing good. Forget not the poor, nourish 
them ; remember that riches come from God, and are given you 
only for a short time. Do not bury your wealth in the ground ; 
this is against the precepts of Christianity. Be fathers to 
orphans. Be judges in the cause of widows, and do not let the 
powerful oppress the weak. Put to death neither innocent nor 
guilty, for nothing is so sacred as the life and the soul of a Chris- 
tian. Never take the name of God in vain ; and never break 
the oath you have made in kissing the crucifix. My brethren 
said to me, " Help us to drive out the sons of Rostislaf, or else 
give up our alliance." But I said, " I cannot forget that I have 
kissed the cross." I opened then the book of Psalms, and read 
there with deep emotion : — " Why art thou so vexed, O my 
soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me ? Put thy trust 
in God. I will confess my faults, and he is gracious." 

' Be not envious at the triumph of the wicked and the success 
of treachery. Fear the lot of the impious. Do not desert the 
sick : do not let the sight of dead corpses terrify you, for we 
must all die. Receive with joy the blessing of the clergy : do 
not keep yourself aloof from them : do them good, that they may 
pray to God for you. Drive out of your heart all suggestions of 
pride, and remember that we are all perishable— to-day full of 
hope, to-morrow in the coffin. Abhor lying, drunkenness, and 
debauchery. Love your wives, but do not suffer them to have 
any power over you. Endeavour constantly to obtain know- 
ledge. Without having quitted his palace, my father spoke 
five languages ; a thing which wins for us the admiration of 
foreigners. 

' In war be vigilant ; be an example to your boyards. Never 
retire to rest until you have posted your guards. Never take off 
your arms while you are within reach of the enemy. And, to 

1 Palmer's Orthodox Communion, p. 95. 



302 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. IX. 



avoid being surprised, always be early on horseback. When 
you are on horseback say your prayers, or at least the shortest 
and the best of all, " Lord, have mercy upon us." 

•' When you travel through your provinces, do not allow your 
attendants to do the least injury to the inhabitants. Entertain 
always at your own expense the master of the house in which 
you take up your abode. 

' If you find yourself affected by any ailment, make three 
prostrations to the ground before the Lord ; and never let the 
sun find you in bed. At the dawn of day, my father, and the 
virtuous men by whom he was surrounded, did thus : they 
glorified the Lord, and cried, in the joy of their hearts, " Vouch- 
safe, O my God, to enlighten me with thy divine light." They 
then seated themselves to deliberate, or to administer justice to 
the people, or they went to the chase ; and in the middle of the 
day they slept ; which God permits to man as well as to beasts 
and birds. 1 

' For my part, I accustomed myself to do everything that I 
might have ordered my servants to do. Night and day, summer 
and winter, I was perpetually moving about. I wished to see 
everything with my own eyes. Never did I abandon the poor 
or the widow to the oppressions of the powerful. I made it my 
duty to inspect the churches and the sacred ceremonies of reli- 
gion, as well as the management of my property, my stables, 
and the vultures and hawks of my hunting establishment. 

' I have made eighty-three campaigns and many expeditions. 
I concluded nineteen treaties with the Polostzy [wandering 
hordes between the Kouban and the Danube — ancestors of the 
Nogais]. I took captive one hundred of their princes, whom I 
set free again ; and I put two hundred of them to death, by 
throwing them into rivers. 

* No one has ever travelled more rapidly than I have done. 
Setting out in the morning from Tchernigof, I have arrived at 
Kieff before the hour of vespers. 

' In my youth, what falls from my horse did I not experience ! 
wounding my feet and my hands, and breaking my head against 
trees. But the Lord watched over me. 

' In hunting amidst the thickest forests, how many times 
have I myself caught wild horses and bound them together 

1 For a like union of devotion and ter of Admiral Korniloff, in Kinglake's 
energy, of religion and patriotism, see 'Invasion of the Crimea,' iv. 142, 171, 
the admirable delineation of the charac- 383. 



lect. ix. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



303 



How many times have I been thrown down by buffaloes 
wounded by the antlers of stags, and trodden under the feet of 
elks ! A furious wild boar rent my sword from my baldrick : 
my saddle was torn to pieces by a bear ; this terrible beast 
rushed upon my courser, whom he threw down upon me. But 
the Lord protected me. 

' O my children, fear neither death nor wild beasts. Trust 
in Providence : it far surpasses all human precautions.' 1 

1 Karacnsin, ii. 202. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

400. Mission of Ulfilas to the Goths. 

862. FOUNDATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE BY 

RURIC. 

863. Mission of Cyril and Methodius to Bulgaria, and Transla- 

tion of the Bible into Sclavonic. 
879. Oskold and Dir martyred as Christians by Oleg. 
955. Baptism of Olga. 

988. Baptism of Vladimir at Kherson, and Conversion of 

Russia at Kieff. 
ioio. Foundation of the Pechersky Monastery at Kieff. 
1015. Martyrdom of Poris and Glieb. 
1017. Accession of Jaroslaff I. 

1054. Foundation of the Church of S. Sophia at Novgorod. 

1 108. Chronicles of Nestor. 

1 1 13. Accession of Vladimir Monomachus. 

1246. Alexander Nevsky. 



304 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



LECTURE X. 

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



Amongst the special authorities for this period may be 
named : — 

1. < The Present State of Russia.' By Samuel Collins, M.D. 

1671. 

2. 'Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century.' (Edited 

by Mr. Bond for the Hakluyt Society.) 1856. 
It contains : 

a) 1 A Treatise on the Russian Commonwealth.' By 

Dr. Giles Fletcher. 1588. 

b) ' The Travels of Sir Jerome Horsey.' 1 591. 



We have reached the period which in Russia most nearly 
corresponds to the Middle Ages of Europe. But, as might 
be expected from the much later birth of the Russian 
Church and Empire, this period both begins and ends 
much later than the corresponding epoch in the West. 
The consolidation of the Teutonic tribes must be carried 
back to Charlemagne in the ninth century ; whereas the 
consolidation of the Sclavonic tribes, by the creation of the 
central capital of Moscow, dates from the beginning of the 
fourteenth century. The European middle age ends with 
the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Russian middle 
age continues at least till the middle of the seventeenth 
century, and in some sense even till the opening of the 
eighteenth. 



LECT. X. 



IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 305 



These synchronisms, or anachronisms, as we might almost 
rather call them, are necessary to bear in mind as illustra- 
tions of the relative positions of Eastern and Western Chris- 
tendom. It is the period between these limits which I now 
propose shortly to describe. 

Of this whole period, the local scene and the outward 
symbol, still surviving the events which gave it birth, is 
£ Moscow.' That marvellous city is the very personification 
of the ecclesiastical history of Russia. It is indeed a per- 
sonification of it even in the literal sense. ' Our holy mother, 
' Moscow,' is the peasant's endearing name for the city ; 
nay, even for the road which leads to it, ' Our dear mother, 
* the great road from Vladimir to Moscow.' 1 Hallowed by 
no Apostolic legends, not even by any Byzantine missions ; 
cleared out of the forests which down to the fourteenth 
century overhung, and still leave their names on, the banks 
of the Moskwa ; with no other attractions than its central 
situation in the heart of the Russian Empire, it has yet 
acquired a hold over the religious mind of a larger part of 
Christendom than is probably exercised by any other city 
except Jerusalem and Rome. Look at its forest of towers 
and domes, springing like gaudy flowers or weeds — blue, 
red, green, silver, golden — from the wide field of green 
roofs, and groves, and gardens. It is a very Russian Rome, 2 
no doubt ; but still, like it, the city of innumerable churches, 
of everlasting bells, of endless processions, of palace and 
church combined, of tombs and thrones, and relics and 
treasures, and invasions and deliverances, as far back as its 
history extends. Look further at the concentration of all 
this in the Kremlin. In that fortress, surrounded by its 
crusted towers and battlemented walls, are united all the 
elements of the ancient religious life of Russia. Side by side 
stand the three cathedrals of the marriages, coronations, 

1 Haxthausen, iii. 151. of 'a new Constantinople.' 'The new 

2 Moscow, after the fall of Constan- Rome which is Moscow.' Macarius's 
tinople, was regarded by the Eastern Travels, i. 325, li. 57. 

Church as ' a new Rome,' in the sense 

X 



306 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



and funerals of the Czars. Hard by are the two convents. 

half palatial, half episcopal. Overhanging all is the double, 
triple palace of Czar and Patriarch. Within that palace is 
a labyrinth of fourteen chapels, multiplied by sovereign after 
sovereign, till the Imperial residence has been more like the 
dwelling-place of a Pope than of a Prince ; whilst, still true 
10 the well-known saying which I have quoted before, the 
Tartar-like building in which these chapels are imbedded, 
itself crabbed, ribbed, low-browed, painted within and with- 
out in the old barbaric grotesqueness of mediaeval Russia, is 
encased with the external magnificence of modern civilisation 
and European grandeur. 

Within these walls, for the most part, lies the scene of 
that portion of history on which we now enter, beginning 
with the foundation of Moscow, and terminating with the 
accession of the Romanoff dynasty. The first coincides in 
time with what in Europe may be called the beginning of 
the second portion of the middle ages, after the close of 
the great struggle between the Popes and Emperors. The 
second coincides with the subsidence of the struggles of the 
European Reformation in the Peace of Westphalia. 

In the gradual consolidation of the Church of Russia, 
which took place during this period, there concurred three 
leading institutions and two leading events. These corre- 
spond to analogous institutions and events in mediaeval 
Europe, and thus convey similar instruction, but varied by 
the peculiar differences of East and West. 

I. Leaving the continuous narrative to be read in the 
characteristic and forcible history of Andrew Mouravieff, 1 I 
will confine myself to the salient points. 

First is the Czar. In the West, as well as in the East, 
the framework of all religious and civil institutions was 
moulded on the idea of a Holy Roman Empire 
succeeding to the Pagan Roman Empire of former 
times. But in the West this institution has signally failed, 

1 I must also express my personal obligations to the author. 



lect. x. ITS MEDLEVAL INSTITUTIONS. 307 



as in the East it has signally succeeded. Charlemagne was 
a much greater man than any of the Russian potentates 
before the time of Peter. His coronation by Leo was a 
much more striking coronation than any that has fallen to 
the lot even of the greatest Russian Emperors. The theory 
of his Empire was defended by Dante with far more genius 
and zeal than ever was the theory of the White Czar by any 
poet or philosopher of Russia. But, nevertheless, the Holy 
Roman Empire has faded away, whilst * the new Caesar of 
* the Empire of Orthodoxy ' 1 still stands. In part this 
difference is owing to the fundamental diversity of the 
Eastern and Western characters. In part, however, the 
institution was fostered by the peculiar circumstances of the 
Russian history, which gave to it importance in the Russian 
Church and Empire beyond what it acquired in other 
regions of the East The very slowness of its growth 
indicates the depth of its roots in the national character 
and history. The transformation of the Grand-Princes of 
KierT, Vladimir, and Novgorod into the Czar of Muscovy, 
and of the Czar of Muscovy into the Emperor of all the 
Russias, was not the work of a day or a century ; it was the 
necessity of the long-sustained wars with Tartars, Poles, 
and Swedes ; it was the craving for union amongst the 
several Princes ; it was the inheritance of the ceremonial 
of the Byzantine Empire, through the intermarriage of 
Ivan III. with the daughter of the last Palaeologus ; it was 
the earnest desire for peace under one head, after the long 
wars of the Pretenders ; it was the homogeneousness of the 
vast Empire, uniting itself under one common ruler. The 
political position of the Czar or Emperor is not within our 
province, but his religious or ecclesiastical position transpires 
through the whole history of his Church. He is the father 
of the whole patriarchal community. The veneration for 
him was in the middle ages almost, it is said, as if he were 

' So the Czar Alexis was formerly addressed by the German Emperor. (Travesl 
of Macarius, 770.) 

X 2 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. x. 



Christ 1 Himself. The line of Grecian Emperors, so it was 
said even by Orientals, had been stained with heresy and 
iconoclasm : never the line of the Orthodox Czars of Mus- 
covy. 2 ' He who blasphemes his Maker meets with forgive- 
' ness amongst men, but he who reviles the Emperor is sure 
' to lose his head.' 3 4 God and the Prince will it, God and 
4 the Prince know it,' 4 were the two arguments, moral and 
intellectual, against which there was no appeal. ' So live 

* your Imperial Majesty, here is my head ; ' ' I have seen 

* the laughing eyes of the Czar ; ' these were the usual ex- 
pressions of loyalty. 5 He was the keeper of the keys and 
TheCoro- the body-servant of God. 6 His coronation, even 
nation. at foe present time, is not a mere ceremony, but a 
historical event and solemn consecration. It is preceded 
by fasting and seclusion, and takes place in the most sacred 
church in Russia ; the Emperor, not as in the correspond- 
ing forms of European investiture a passive recipient, but 
himself the principal figure in the whole scene ; himself 
reciting aloud the confession of the Orthodox faith ; him- 
self alone on his knees, amidst the assembled multitude, 
offering up the prayer of intercession for the Empire ; him- 
self placing his own crown with his own hands on his own 
head ; himself entering through the sacred doors of the 
innermost sanctuary, and taking from the altar all the 
elements of the bread and wine, of which then and there, 
in virtue of his consecration, he communicates with bishops, 
priests, and deacons. In every considerable church is placed 
a throne in front of the altar, as if in constant expecta- 
tion of the sudden apparition of the Sovereign. In every 
meeting, council, or college is placed the sacred triangular 

* mirror,' ' the mirror of conscience,' as it is called, which 
represents the Imperial presence, and solemnises, as if by 
an actual consecration, the business to be transacted. 

In the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, within the 



1 Macarius, i. 401. 2 Ibid. ii. 45. s Ibid. ii. 73. 

* Strahl, ii. 65. 6 Tractson Muscovite Religion, 37. 6 Ibid. 38. 



lect. x. ITS MEDIAEVAL INSTITUTIONS. 309 



Kremlin, lie, each in his place, their coffins ranged around 
the wall, the long succession of Czars, from the 

TheCathe- & . , „ , 

draiofthe founder of Moscow to the predecessor of the 
Archangel. f oun( } er 0 f Petersburg. Round the walls, above 
each coffin, are the figures painted in long white robes, each 
with a glory round his head, not the glory of saintly canoni- 
sation, 1 but of that Imperial canonisation of which I have 
just spoken. Twice a year a funeral service is performed 
for the sins of all of them. Of all those who there lie 
buried, under ' that burden of sins,' — so the service solemnly 
expresses it, — 'voluntary or involuntary, known to them- 
selves or unknown,' — none more strangely and significantly 
indicates the mixed character of the Russian Czar, or the 
hold which the office had acquired on the people, than he 
who, as the first crowned and anointed Czar of Muscovy, 
lies next the altar, in the most sacred place, Ivan or John IV., 
surnamed ' the Terrible.' 

Without dwelling on the details of his life, his 
TeSibie. history will serve the purpose of presenting to us 
Jjjj. 1333- some peculiarities of this aspect of the Russian 
Church. 

His career has a dramatic interest of its own, unlike 
that of most of the great tyrants of the world. From a 
youth of barbarous profligacy he was reclaimed suddenly, 
and, as it would seem, entirely, by the joint efforts of his 
wife Anastasia, of the monk Sylvester, and of the noble 
Adasheff. For thirteen years under their influence he led 
not only a pure and good life, but a career of brilliant 
success long unknown in the Russian annals. ' It was as if 
' a cloud which had before concealed Russia from the eyes 
1 of Europe was suddenly drawn asunder, and revealed to 
' them at the moment of their greatest need, against the 
1 aggressive power of the Ottoman Empire, a young Chris- 
' tian hero at the head of a great empire, to be the vanguard 



1 Although it was taken for such by the Syrian travellers. Macarius, ii. 44. 



3io 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. x. 



' and support of Christendom.' 1 But this was only tran- 
sient. At the end of thirteen years these good influences 
were partly withdrawn and partly crushed. He returned 
once more to far worse than his youthful vices ; insanity 
blended itself with furious passion, and, although sparks of 
religion still remained at times bursting forth into fervent 
devotion, although noble schemes of civilisation hovered 
before his mind always, and kept his name in sight before 
the Western world, yet, if we may believe half the crimes 
laid to his charge, he stands unrivalled, at least amongst 
Christian sovereigns, in his pre-eminence of wickedness. 

He is the first Russian Prince who comes into direct 
contact with the West. 2 He corresponded with and courted 
our own Elizabeth. 3 It is interesting to reflect that probably 
he was the first great political personage who claimed and 
who received the promise of the right of asylum in Eng- 
land, in case of a revolution in his own country ; and also 
that to this communication we owe the first distinct de- 
scription of Russian life and religion by an Englishman, in 
the Journal of Sir Jerome Horsey, employed as messenger 
between Ivan and Elizabeth. There is something almost 
Shakspearian in the delineation which Horsey gives of the 
last time he saw the tremendous Emperor : 

' God would not leave this cruelty and barbarism unpunished. 
Not long after, he, the Emperor, fell out in rage with his 
a.d. 1584. e ^ est son Charrowich [the Czarovitch] Ivan for having 
some commiseration of these distressed poor Christians ; and but 
for commanding an officer to give a gentleman a warrant for 5 or 
6 post-horses, sent in his affairs, without the king's leave, and 
some other jealousy of greatness and too good opinion of the 
people as he thought, strake him in his fury a box on the ear or 
thrust at him with his piked staff ; who took it so tenderly, fell 



1 Palmer's Orthodox Communion, p. 

a It is not improbable that from him 
are drawn Hooker's almost contempo- 
raneous descriptions of a prosperous but 
wicked potentate, delighting in the awe 



which he inspires, and in the thought 
that ' the enormity of his crimes is above 
all reach of law.' Sermon on Pride (voL 
iii. pt. ii. pp. 753, 754, 787). 
s Collins, 47. 



lect. x. IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 311 

into a burning fever, and died within three days after. Whereat 
the Emperor tore his hair and beard like a mad man, lamenting 
and mourning for the loss of his son. (But the kingdom had 
the greatest loss, the hope of their comfort, a wise, mild, and 
most worthy prince, of heroical condition, of comely presence, 
twenty-three years of age, beloved and lamented of all men : 
was buried in Michaela Sweat [S. Michael] Archangel church, 
with jewels, precious stones, and apparel, put into his tomb with 
his corpse, worth 50 thousand pounds, watched by twelve citizens 
every night by change, dedicated unto his saint John and Michael 
Archangel, to keep both body and treasure.) 1 

******* 

* The old Emperor was carried every day in his chair into his 
Treasury. One day he beckoned me to follow. I stood among 
the rest venturously, and heard him call for some precious stones 
and jewels. Told the Prince and nobles present before and 
about him the vertue of such and such, which I observed, and 
do pray I may a little digress to declare for my own memory's 
sake. 

* " The load-stone," he said, " you all know hath great and 
hidden vertue, without which the seas that compass the world 
are not navigable, nor the bounds nor circle of the earth cannot 
be known. Mahomet, the Persian's Prophet, his tomb of steel 
hangs in their Rapetta at Darbent most miraculously." 

4 Caused the waiters to bring a chain of needles touched by 
this load-stone, hanged all one by the other. " This fair coral 
and this fair turcas you see ; take in your hand ; of his nature 
are orient colours ; put them on my hand and arm. I am 
poisoned with disease ; you see they show their vertue by the 
change of their pure colour into pale : declares my death. 
Reach out my staff royal ; an unicorn's horn garnished with 
very fair diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and other pre- 
cious stones that are rich in value ; cost 70 thousand marks 
sterling of David Gower from the fowlkers of Ousborghe. 2 Seek 
out for some spiders." 

'Caused his physician, 'Johannes LlofT, to scrape a circle 
thereof upon the table ; put within it one spider and so one other 
and died, and some other without that ran alive apace from it. 
" It is too late, it will not preserve me. Behold these precious 

Travels of Horsey, 178, 199. 
' Qu. 1 the Fuggers [the great merchant family] of Augsburg/ 



312 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



stones. This diamond is the orient's richest and most precious 
of all other. I never affected it ; it restrains fury and luxury, 
[gives ?] abstinence and chastity ; the least parcel of it in powder 
will poison a horse given to drink, much more a man." Points 
at the ruby. " O ! this is most comfortable to the heart, brain, 
vigour, and memory of man, clarifies congealed and corrupt 
blood." Then at the emerald. " The nature of the rainbow ; 
this precious stone is an enemy to uncleanness. The sapphire 
I greatly delight in ; it preserves and increases courage, joys 
the heart, pleasing to all the vital senses, precious and very 
sovereign for the eyes, clears the sight, takes away blood-shot, 
and strengthens the muscles and strings thereof." Then takes 
the onyx in hand. " All these are God's wonderful gifts, secrets 
in nature, and yet reveals them to man's use and contemplation, 
as friends to grace and vertue and enemies to vice. I faint, 
carry me away till another time." 

' In the afternoon peruseth over his will, and yet thinks not 
to die : he bath been bewitched in that place, and oftentimes 
unwitched again ; but now the devil fails. Commands the 
master of his apotheke and physicians to prepare and attend for 
his solace and bathing ; looks for the goodness of the sign ; 
sends his favourite to his witches again to know their calcula- 
tions. He comes and tells them the Emperor will bury or burn 
them all quick for their false illusions and lies. The day is 
come ; he is as heart whole as ever he was. " Sir, be not so 
wrathful. You know the day is come and ends with the setting 
of the sun." He hastes him to the Emperor : made great pre- 
paration for the bath. About the third hour of the day the 
Emperor went into it, solaced himself and made merry with 
pleasant songs as he useth to do : came out about the seventh 
hour well refreshed ; brought forth ; sets him down upon his 
bed ; calls Rodovone Bcerken, a gentleman whom he favoured, 
to bring the chess-board. He sets his men ; all saving the king, 
which by no means he could not make stand in his place with 
the rest upon the plain board ; his chief favourite and Boris 
Fedorowich Goddorove and others about him. The Emperor 
in his loose gown, shirt and linen hose, faints and falls back- 
ward. Great outcry and stir ; one sent for aqua vitae, another 
to the apotheke for " marigold and " rose water, and to call " his 
ghostly father and " the physicians. In the mean time he was 
strangled and stark dead.' 



2ECT. X. 



IVAN THE TERRIBLE. 



313 



Out of the history of this wild monster two points may 
a.d. 1533. De specially dwelt upon as illustrating the position 
—1584. 0 f foe Russian religion. 

First, his union of frantic excesses of wickedness with 
apparently sincere bursts of religious feeling renders him, 
Union of perhaps, the most remarkable instance which history 
and wiSSed- f urn i snes of the combination of a total disregard of 
ness - all the moral precepts of religion with at least an 
occasional observance of its ceremonial and devotional duties. 
Antinomianism is the reproach of the lower and coarser 
forms of the Protestant Church. Louis XL is a standing 
disgrace to the Roman Church. But these instances are 
exceeded, both in the depth of their wickedness and the 
fervour of their zeal, by Ivan the Terrible. A single passage 
out of many will suffice. He retired sometimes for weeks 
together to a monastery which he had built for himself near 
Moscow. He rang the bell for matins himself at three in 
the morning. During the services, which lasted seven hours, 
he read, chanted, and prayed with such fervour that the 
marks of his prostrations remained on his forehead. At 
dinner, whilst his attendants sat like mutes, he read books 
of religious instruction. In the intervals he went to the 
dungeons under the monastery to see with his own eyes his 
prisoners tortured, and always returned, it was observed, 
with a face beaming with delight. 1 

If it be true that the Oriental forms of Christianity are 
more exposed than others to this danger of uniting the form 
of godliness with the mystery of iniquity, then the history 
of Ivan is a warning which should never be absent from 
the mind of any adherent or of any admirer of the Eastern 
Church. His life reads a lesson in which every Christian 
community is deeply concerned, but none more so than the 
Church and Empire of Russia. 

But, moreover, terrible, loathsome, widespread as were 
his crimes and cruelties, he reigned not only without personal 

1 Karamsin, ix. 308. 



3H 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



danger, but almost, it may be said, with personal popularity, 
influence as When he offered to abdicate, when he drove off 
Czar - from the Kremlin in his sledges to his retreat at 
Alexandroff, the people were in despair. What would have 
seemed to us a deliverance beyond ail hope seemed to them 
a calamity beyond all endurance. They could not live with- 
out a Czar ; and when, as a Czar, he returned, to mangle, 
torture, and dishonour his subjects, he died, not by the 
hand of any assassin, but in the agonies of his own remorse. 
In foreigners, even then, he excited dread and indignation ; 
and the English merchant describes how he 'was sump- 

* tuously entombed in the Archangel church, where he, 

* though guarded day and night, remains a fearful spectacle 

* to the memory of such as pass by, or hear his name spoken 
' of, who were entreated to cross and bless themselves for 

* his resurrection again.' But this feeling was one, with 
his own countrymen, not of unmingled horror. The epithet 
which we render ' Terrible,' in the original expresses rather 
the idea of ' Awful,' the feeling with which the Athenians 
would have regarded, not Periander or Dionysius, but the 
Eumenides. His memory still lives amongst the peasants 
as of one who was a Czar indeed. The stories of his nailing 
the hat of the ambassador to his head, and of his driving 
his huge iron walking staff through the foot of one whose 
attention he wished to secure, are regarded rather as the 
playful condescension of some great Leviathan, than as the 
unfeeling cruelties of a wicked prince. 1 

II. The Czar was the first person in the Church, the 
Metropolitan of Russia was the second. The holy city of 
Kieff was, as we have seen, the earliest seat of the 

The Metro- 7 ' 

giitan of Russian Primacy. This was the traditional scene 
of St Andrew's preaching, the actual scene of Vla- 
dimir's first proclamation of the Gospel. But the ultimate 
and permanent seat of the Russian Primates was Moscow, 
which was in fact their creation. When the Grand-Prince 

* I heard of these stories myself, but they are also given in Collins, 45. 



LECT. X. 



THE METROPOLITAN. 



315 



Ivan I. was doubtfully establishing his habitation on the 
Kremlin hill, his determination was fixed and 
a.d. 1325. steadied by the counsel of Peter the Metropolitan. 

* If thou wilt comfort my old age, if thou wilt build here a 

* temple worthy of the Mother of God, thou shalt then be 
' more glorious than all the other princes, and thy posterity 

* shall become great. My bones shall remain in this city ; 
4 prelates shall rejoice to dwell in it ; and the hands of its 

* princes shall be on the neck of our enemies.' 1 

The heart of Moscow is the Kremlin, and the heart of 
the Kremlin is the Patriarchal Cathedral, the Church of the 
ThePatri Assumption or Repose of the Virgin. It is, in 
archai^ ^ dimensions, what in the West would be called a 
chapel rather than a cathedral. But it is so fraught 
with recollections, so teeming with worshippers, so bursting 
with tombs and pictures, from the pavement up to the 
cupola, that its smallness of space is forgotten in the fulness 
of its contents. On the platform of its nave, from Ivan the 
Terrible downwards to this day, the Czars have been crowned. 
Along its altar-screen are deposited the most sacred pictures 
of Russia : that, painted by the Metropolitan Peter ; this, 
sent by the Greek Emperor Manuel ; that, brought by Vla- 
dimir from Kherson. High in the cupola is the chapel, 
where, as at the summit of the Russian Church, the Russian 
Primates were elected. In the depth of the throne, behind 
the altar, is the sacred picture which commemorates the 
original rock of KierT, whence the see of Moscow was hewn. 
Round the walls are buried the Primates of the Church ; at 
the four corners, here as in all Oriental buildings the place 
of honour, lie those most highly venerated. 

It was by gradual changes that the Metropolitans of the 
General cha- Russian Church were rendered independent of 
M C etropo. the Constantinople. Jonah, in the middle of the fif- 
htans. teenth century, was the first in whose appointment 
' the Great Church ' had no direct share. And after the fall 

1 Mouravieff, 54. 



316 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



of the Byzantine Empire, the Patriarch Jeremiah, in 1587, 
consented to turn Job, the Metropolitan of Moscow, into a 
Patriarch; the Patriarchate of Russia thus, according to a 
theory which has been advanced in the Eastern Church, 
supplying the place of the Patriarch of Rome, vacated, as 
is alleged, by the schism 1 of the Roman Bishop. But those 
external changes affected very slightly the character and 
bearing of those who filled the see. An almost uniform 
spirit breathes through them all. Hard by, in the neigh- 
bouring convent, lies one of the earliest and most famous, 
Alexis the wonder-worker, whose grave is still visited by 
every sovereign on his entrance into Moscow. 4 Whose tomb 
is this ? ' asked Davoust. in the French occupation ; and on 
being told, he replied, ' Let the old man rest.' What the 
French general thus expressed on the impulse of the moment 
is the feeling with which history may regard, with one or 
two exceptions to be hereafter noticed, the whole series of 
these ancient prelates. ' Let the old men rest' 

They were mostly blameless and venerable men ; some 
had not unimportant parts to play in the leading events of 
Russian history. The personal regard shown to them, as 
still to their successors, probably exceeds the respect at- 
taching to ecclesiastics of the West. When the late aged 
Metropolitan of Moscow moved from the cathedral, it was 
with difficulty that he could struggle through the crowd, 
who, were he of pure gold and did every touch carry away 
a particle, could hardly press more eagerly to devour his 
hand with kisses, or lay a finger on the hem of his garment. 
And as he drove away in his state carriage, drawn by six 
black horses, every one stood bareheaded in the street as 
he passed, and the bells of the innumerable churches and 
chapels of Moscow, as the carriage rolled by, joined in an 
ever-increasing river of sound, tributary streams of all dimen- 
sions, from the tinkling of a brook to the roaring of a cata- 

1 See the Vindication of the See of ture I. p. 15), by Gregory, the Secretary 
Constantinople (before quoted in Lec- of the Synod, p. 158. 



lect. x. THE METROPOLITAN. 



317 



ract, falling in and telling the course of his route long after 
he was out of sight. 

But neither the grandeur of the office, nor the enthusiasm 
of the people, has ever raised the Primates of Russia to a level 
of political importance, I will not say with the Popes, but 
even with the prelates of Europe. They have always been 
the supporters, not the rivals, of the throne. There has 
been no Hildebrand, no Becket, no Anselm amongst them. 
Of the four who rest in the four corners of the cathedral, 
Peter, the first Metropolitan, has the honour of being the 
co-founder of Moscow with the first Ivan ; Jonah was the 
prelate who made the see independent of Constantinople ; 
Hermogenes died a victim to the Polish invaders; Philip 
„ , .,. alone came into collision with the Imperial power, 

S. Philip. , . . _ .. . _ r . , , r 9 

and that was expressly and distinctly with the per- 
sonal cruelties, not with the secular authority, of Ivan the 
Terrible. ' As the image of the Divinity, I reverence thee ; 

' as a man, thou art but dust and ashes.' It is a 
a.d. 1568. glory of the Russian Church, and an example 

to the hierarchy of all churches, that its one martyred pre- 
late should have suffered, not for any high ecclesiastical 
pretensions, but in the simple cause of justice and mercy. 
'Silence,' he said, as he rebuked the Czar, 'lays sin upon 
' the soul, and brings death to the whole people. ... I am 
4 a stranger and a pilgrim upon earth, as all my fathers were, 
1 and I am ready to suffer for the truth. Where would my 
' faith be if I kept silence? . . Here we are offering up the 
4 bloodless sacrifice to the Lord ; while behind the altar flows 
* the innocent blood of Christian men.' As he was dragged 
ciway from the cathedral, his one word was 'Pray.' As he 
received his executioners in the narrow cell of his prison in 
the convent of Twer, his one word was 'Perform thy mission.' 1 
That narrow cell, now locked up and almost forgotten, is 
more truly deserving the name of ' the Martyrdom ' than the 
spot where our English primate fell, with more spirit, but not 

1 Mouravieff, 176, 177, 179. 



3i8 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



with more courage, and certainly not with a better cause, nor 
with more meekness or charity. The death of Philip of 
Moscow, however obscure in ecclesiastical annals, is at least 
valuable as a proof that in order to secure a protest against 
the lust and cruelty of sovereigns, it is not necessary to have 
a perpetual irritation between the powers of Church and 
State. One such prelate occurs in the Russian history, and 
he more in appearance than in fact. But he, the Patriarch 
Nicon, lies far away from his predecessors at Moscow, and 
beyond the limits of the mediaeval age, of which we are now 
speaking. 

III. I pass to the third ecclesiastical power in the Russian 
commonwealth — the Monastic orders. Here, as I have ob- 
Monastic served on a former occasion, 1 we must dismiss from 
orders. our m i nc i s a n the Western ideas of beneficence, 
learning, preaching, such as we ascribe to the Benedictines, 
Franciscans, or Dominicans ; of statecraft, energy, and policy, 
such as we ascribe to the Jesuits. These developments of 
the system are, according to the view of the Orthodox Church 
of the East, an infringement of the contemplative ascetic 
character of the anchorets and coenobites of antiquity. In 
the dark forests of Muscovy, in the frozen waters of Arch- 
angel, is carried out the same rigid system, at least in out- 
ward form, that was born and nurtured in the burning desert 
of the Thebaid. 

But, nevertheless, they have not been without their influ- 
ence — an influence very similar to that which was exercised 
by their spiritual ancestors, the ascetics of Egypt. 

There is no variety of monastic orders in Russia. The 
one name of the Black Clergy is applied to all alike. The 
one rule of S. Basil governs them all. But, for convenience, 
they may be divided into two classes ; the Hermits and the 
Monks. 

i Even at the present day the influence of a hermit in 
Russia is beyond what it is in any other part of the world 

' Lecture I. p. 25. 



LECT. X. 



THE HERMITS. 



319 



Within the memory of men now living died an anchoret, 
The who for twenty years had lived in absolute soli- 

Hermits, tude, except when he came out once a year to 
receive the Eucharist on Easterday, and who yet, at the end 
of that time, was consulted in the belief of his practical saga- 
city far and wide through the Empire. ' It was as if by the 

* concentration of his will he had acquired a kind of magnetic 
' power ' — so it was described to me by one who had heard 
much of him — ' over all who came within his reach.' In 
earlier times this sanctity had acquired a still stronger hold. 
Anthony and Theodosius in the caves of KierT were the 
direct imitators of Anthony and Hilarion in Egypt, and their 
dried skeletons still attract pilgrims from the utmost bounds 
of Kamtschatka. The pillar hermits, imitators of Simeon 
Stylites, never reached the West, but were to be found in the 
heart of Russia. 1 But there was a further and a more noble 
function which these wild hermits exercised. Let me de- 
scribe them as they appeared to English travellers of the 
a.d. 1588— sixteenth century. 2 1 There are certain eremites, 
1591- < w ho used to go stark naked; save a clout about 

* their middle, with their hair hanging long and wildly about 
' their shoulders, and many of them with an iron collar or 
c chain about their necks or middles even in the very extre- 
c mity of winter. These they take as prophets and men of 
' great holiness, giving them a liberty to speak what they list 

* without any controlment, though it be of the very highest 
1 himself. So that if he reprove any openly, in what sort 

* soever, they answer nothing, but that it is Po Grecum, "for 
1 "their sins." And if any of them take some piece of sale 

* ware from any man's shop as he passeth by, to give where 

* he list, he thinketh himself much beloved of God, and 
1 much beholden to the holy man for taking it in that sort. 
' The people liketh very well of them, because they are as 
1 pasquils [pasquins] to note their great men's faults, that no 



1 Nicetas, at Peryaslav. Strahl 138 ; 1 Fletcher, Russian Commonwealth, 

A.D. i©86. 117. 



320 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. x. 



* man else dare speak of. Yet it falleth out sometimes that 

* for this rude liberty which they take upon them, after a 

* counterfeit manner by imitation of prophets, they are made 

* away in secret ; as was one or two of them in the late 

* Emperor's time for being overbold in speaking against his 

* government. ... Of this kind there are not many, because 

* it is a very hard and cold profession to go naked in Russia, 

* especially in winter.' 

Of those thus described, three may be selected : — 

1 There is one at this time that walketh naked about the 

* streets of Moscow, and inveigheth commonly against the 
' state and government, especially against the Godonoffs.' 
[That is, the high family who at that time were ' thought to 
4 be oppressors of the commonwealth,' and of whom the chief 
has ever since by the popular voice, of which this hermit was 
the powerful mouthpiece, been condemned as the author of 
the serfdom of the Russian peasantry.] 

' Another there was, one whom they called Basil, that 
' would take upon him to reprove the old Emperor [the ter- 
Basii of ' rible Ivan] for all his cruelty and oppression done 
Moscow. < towards the people. His body they have trans- 
' lated into a sumptuous church near the Emperor's house 
' in Moscow, and have canonised him for a saint.' That 
sumptuous church remains, a monument of the mad hermit 
It is the cathedral immediately outside the Kremlin walls, 
well termed 'the dream of a diseased imagination.' It was 
built according to the barbarous caprice of Ivan IV. 
' Ij44 ' to commemorate his conquest of Kazan. Hundreds 
of artists were kidnapped from Lubeck to erect it, pagoda 
on pagoda, cupola on cupola, staircase upon staircase, pinna- 
cle on pinnacle,— red, blue, green, and gold; chapel within 
chapel,altar above altar, to see how many could be congre- 
gated under a single roof. Day by day, it is said, he sat in 
the small belfry tower on the Kremlin walls, to watch its 
completion ; and when it was completed, put out the eyes of 
the architect, that no finer work might ever be executed. Yet 



LECT. X. 



THE HERMITS. 



321 



in this favourite church of a worse than Ahab was interred, 
as though he and his people were unconscious of any incon- 
sistency, the body of one who was dreaded by him, and 
revered by the people almost as a second Elijah. He lies 
in the most costly of the many chapels ; his iron chains and 
collar hang over his bones, and his name, 'S. Basil,' has 
superseded the earlier title which the Czar had given it, 
4 the Protection of Our Lady,' in allusion to the conquest of 
Kazan which it commemorated. Of all the buildings in 
Moscow it makes the deepest impression ; it stands alone, 
as a fitting monument of the mad Czar and of his mad 
reprover. 

Another, who lived at the same time, Nicolas of PskofT, 
or Plescow, is thus described by Horsey, who had himself 
met him : — ' I saw this impostor or magician, a 

Nicolas of ....... , 

Plescow c foul creature ; went naked both in winter and 
a.d. 1570. t summer . en d urec [ both extreme heat and frost ; 

' did many things through the magical illusions of the devil ; 
* much followed, praised and renowned both by prince and 
' people. He did much good ' 1 when Ivan came to his 
native town of Plescow, with the savage intention of mas- 
sacring the whole population there, as he had already 
done at Novgorod. It was the early morning as the Czar 
approached the town. The bells of the churches 2 — those 
voices of Russian religion — were sounding for matins, and 
for a moment his hard heart was melted, and his religious 
feeling was stirred. The hut of the hermit was close by : 
Ivan saluted him and sent him a present. The holy man, 
in return, sent him a piece of raw flesh. It was during the 
great fast of Lent, 3 and Ivan expressed his surprise at such 
a breach of the rules of the Church. 4 Ivasko, Ivasko,' 4 
that is 1 Jack, Jack,' — so with his accustomed rudeness 
the hermit addressed his terrible sovereign, — 1 thinkest thou 
' that it is unlawful to eat a piece of beast's flesh in Lent, 



1 Horsey, i6x. 
3 Fletcher, 118. 



s Mouravieff, 119. 
* Fletcher, 118. 



322 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



* and not unlawful to eat up so much man's flesh as thou 

* hast already ? ' 1 At the same time he pointed to a dark 
thunder-cloud over their heads, and threatened the Czar 
with instant destruction by it, if he or any of his army 
touched a hair of the least child's head in that city, which 
God by his good angel did preserve for better purpose than 
his rapine. 2 Ivan trembled and retired, 3 and Plescow was 
saved. 

I have given these instances, because they explain the 
reverence of the people for the memory of those rough 
messengers of unwelcome truth. They are also character- 
istic of the truly Oriental aspect of the Russian Church. 
A Dervish 4 in Arabia or India is the lowest type of the 
same phenomenon ; the Prophets of the Jewish people are 
its highest type, not unfitly illustrated by these its later 
representatives. They ought also to be borne in mind to 
correct a too severe judgment of the ceremonial character 
of the Russian faith. No Prophet of old, no Reformer of 
modern times, could have delivered a more striking testi- 
mony in behalf of the true moral character of Christianity, 
than the wild hermit with his raw flesh in Lent 

2. I pass to the Monasteries. Mostly they sprang out 
of the neighbourhood of hermitages, like their Egyptian 
The Mo- prototypes ; but they too gradually acquired a 
nasteries. peculiar mission in the Russian history — a mission 
disclosed in their outward aspect and situation. We look 
round from the walls of the Kremlin over the city of 
Moscow. What are the landmarks which break the end- 
less complication of domes and cupolas in every street and 
square? The eye rests at once on the towers of vast 
monasteries which at regular intervals encircle the outskirts 
of the whole city, each encompassed with its embattled 

Karamsin, ix. 635. the warning of Nicolas, and that he then 

2 Horsey, 161, 162. retired. Strahl's Geschichte, iii. 213. 

3 One account says that he still per- 4 For an excellent description of the 
sisted in ordering the great bell of the better and more prophet-like aspect of 
church of the Holy Trinity to be moved ; the Dervishes, see Wolff's Life, i. 477. 
but that his best horse fell, according to 



LECT. X. 



THE MONASTERIES. 



323 



walls, forming together a girdle of gigantic fortresses. Or 
we stand on the grass-grown walls of the great Novgorod ; 
the ancient city has shrunk into a mere village within their 
circuit ; and without, instead of the wide expanse of build- 
ings which fill up the view of the later capital of Moscow, 
is now a desolate wilderness. Yet this one feature remains 
alike in both. At regular intervals, but here isolated and 
in deserted solitudes, the circle of monasteries — half sanc- 
tuaries, half fortresses — preserves the ribs of the huge 
skeleton from which the flesh of human habitation and 
cultivation has long since fallen away. This is the true 
aspect of the Russian monasteries. Like the convent of 
Sinai, like the convents of Greece, they are the refuges of 
national life, or the monuments of victories won for an 
oppressed population against invaders and conquerors. 

IV. This brings me to what I have called the 
the Russian two leading events of the mediaeval age of Russia, 
Church. j n w Yiich the Russian Church played so con- 
spicuous a part. 

1. The first was the occupation of Russia for two 
centuries by the Mongol Tartars. The leading event of 
Tartar in- mediaeval Europe was, undoubtedly, the Crusades, 
vasion. j n t j ie Crusades Russia took no part. Its sepa- 
ration from them is one of its most important grounds of 
separation from the Western World. But in its constant 
struggle against the Mussulman Tartars of the North it had 
a Crusade of its own, far more close and severe, more dis- 
astrous in its duration, and proportionately more glorious 
in its close, than the remote struggle of Europe with the 
Mussulman Turks and Arabs of the South. With the 
history only of one Western country can the history of 
Russia be in this respect compared. In Spain as well as in 
Russia, the effects, partly in similar, partly in dissimilar 
forms, are most strongly impressed on the religious life of 
the nation. Civilisation and consolidation must have been 
greatly checked. But the intensity of devotional feeling, 

T 2 



324 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



the close identification of the religious and the national 
life, must have been immeasurably deepened by this long 
struggle against foreign enemies of a different faith. 

The very name for a Russian peasant, Christianin 
(Christian), is a relic of the times when a Christian was a 
distinctive term for a Russian. On the top of every Rus- 
sian church, in every town which was under the Tartar 
yoke, 1 the Cross is planted on a Crescent. To this is to be 
ascribed the strong anti-Mussulman feeling which animates 
the heart of every Russian peasant, and which, whether by 
nature or policy, is so powerful an engine in all the wars 
which have in later times been waged against Turkey. 

It was during this Tartar dominion that the clergy 
showed themselves the deliverers of their country. The 
post that is occupied in Europe by princes and warriors 
against the several oppressors of their respective countries, 
is occupied in Russia against the Tartars, as in modern 
Greece against the Turks, by the Clergy and the Church. 
Foundation ^ ^ s ^ re °^ nat i° na l an d religious independence 
Troilza ^ e sacred hearth is to be sought, not at KierT or 
monastery, Moscow, but at a spot which, from this singular 
a.d. i 33 8. un j on Q £ assoc i a tions, has, down to the present day, 
remained the chief sanctuary of the Russian Church and 
nation— the Monastery of the Troitza ('the Holy Trinity') 
which was founded at this period ; the period marked, as in 
Europe at large so in Russia, by the pestilence of the Black 
Death, 2 and in the latter followed by the general establish- 
ment of convents, of which that of the Troitza was chief. 
About sixty miles from Moscow, in the midst of the wild 
forest which covers all the uncultivated ground of the Rus- 
sian soil, rises the immense pile of the ancient convent. 
Like the Kremlin, it combines the various institutions of 
monastery, university, palace, cathedral, churches, planted 



1 King's Greek Church in Russia, 24. The Troitza was founded in 1338 ; but 
3 The chief year of the Black Death its great increase, and its dependencies, 
was 1348. It reached Russia in 1351. date from 1360. Strahl, 163-165. 



lect. x. THE TROITZA MONASTERY. 325 

within a circuit of walls, which by their height and strength, 
and towers and trench, indicate that, over and above all 
these other elements of life, was superadded in a predomi- 
nant degree that of a camp or fortress. 

Hither from all parts of the Empire stream innumerable 
pilgrims. Every village along the road from Moscow is 
consecrated by some religious or historical association. No 
Emperor comes to Moscow without paying his devotions 
there. The terrible Ivan built at least half of its stately 
edifices. Peter, as we shall see, twice took refuge within 
its sacred walls. The wicked Catharine used to go thither 
from Moscow with all her court, on foot, by easy stages,, five 
miles a day ; with vessels of the water of the Neva always 
at hand to refresh her. On foot many of the nobles of the 
present day have made their first pilgrimage. No presents 
are so welcome to their families on their return as the 
memorials of sacred bread, or sacred relics, from •'the 
1 Laura 5 or convent of the Holy Trinity. The office of 
Archimandrite, or Abbot, is so high that for many years it 
has never been given to any one but the Metropolitan of 
Moscow : the actual chief, the Hegoumenos or Prior, is 
himself one of the highest dignitaries of Russia, and lives 
in a style of magnificence which is to our eyes rather like 
that of the heads of our grandest colleges, than of the ruler 
of a monastic establishment. ' Whence do you derive your 
support for all this state ? ' asked the Emperor Nicholas of 
the present Prior. 1 He answered nothing, but pointed to 
the chest which at that moment, and at all hours of the day, 
was receiving the offerings of the long array of pilgrims, and 
which has contributed in no slight degree to the necessities 
of the Empire. 

Its present splendour stands but in remote connection 
with its single beginning, to which we now return. In the 
treasury of the convent we still can trace back, by graduai 



1 This is also told of Philaret, the made before the picture at the entrance 
Metropolitan, in regard to the offerings to the public place of Moscow. 



326 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. lect. X. 



stages, the gorgeous vestments glittering with 'barbaric 
gold and pearls,' to the rough sackcloth of the founder ; or 
the mass of wealth which each succeeding Czar has heaped 
upon the consecrated vessels, to the wooden chalice in 
which the first sacrament was there celebrated by Sergius 
of Radonegl. We may be reminded of our profound ig- 
norance of those old Eastern worthies, and of the way in 
which history is often composed, by the fact that our 
common Western histories of Russia pass by the whole 
period of the times of Sergius, without even an allusion to a 
name at least as dear to every Russian heart, and as 
familiar among Russian homes, as William Tell to a Swiss, 
or as Joan of Arc to a Frenchman. In the depths of these 
s. Sergius, tnen impenetrable forests, with the bears for his 
£392 13 can~ companions, lived, in the fourteenth century, the 
onised 1428. h 0 iy hermit Sergius. Like the lives of Western 
saints of the same period, his career is encircled with a halo 
of legend. But there is no reason to doubt the fact, which 
still lives in a thousand memorials throughout his grateful 
' country. When the heart of the Grand-Prince 
Don. a.d. Demetrius 1 failed in his advance against the 
1380. Tartars, it was the remonstrance, the blessing, the 
prayers of Sergius that supported him to the field of battle 
on the Don, which gave him the cherished name of De- 
metrius of the Don. No historical picture or sculpture in 
Russia is more frequent than that which represents the 
youthful warrior receiving the benediction of the aged 
hermit. Two of his monks, Peresvet and Osliab, accom- 
panied the Prince to the field, and fought in coats of mail 
drawn over their monastic habit ; and the battle was begun 
by the single combat of Peresvet with a gigantic Tartar, 
champion of the Mussulman host. 2 



1 Demetrius himself was almost a 
saint ; he went daily to church, received 
the sacrament once a week in the great 
fasts, and wore a hair-cloth next his 



skin. Strahl, 171. At the battle he 
sang aloud the 46th Psalm. Karamsin, 
L 81. 

9 Mouravieff, 62. 



lect. x. THE POLISH INVASION. 



327 



The two chief convents in the suburbs of Moscow still 
preserve the recollection of that day. One is the vast fortress 
of the Donskoi 1 Monastery, under the Sparrow Hills. The 
other is the SimonofT Monastery, founded by the nephew of 
Sergius on the banks of the Mosqua, on a beautiful spot 
chosen by the saint himself, and its earliest site was con- 
secrated by the tomb which covers the bodies of his two 
warlike monks. From that day forth he stood out in the 
national recollections as the champion of Russia. It was 
still from his convent that the noblest patriotic inspirations 
were drawn, and, as he had led the way in giving the first 
great repulse to the Tartar power, so the final blow in like 
manner came from a successor in his place. When Ivan III. 
wavered, as Demetrius had wavered before him, it was by the 
remonstrance of Archbishop Bassian, formerly Prior of the 
Trinity Convent, that Ivan too was driven, almost against 
his will, to the field. ' Dost thou fear death ? ' — so he was 
addressed by the aged prelate. ' Thou too must die as well 
' as others ; death is the lot of all, man, beast, and bird 

* alike ; none avoid it. Give these warriors into my hand, 

* and, old as I am, I will not spare myself, nor turn my back 

* upon the Tartars.' 2 The Metropolitan, we are told, added 
his exhortations to those of Bassian. Ivan returned to the 
camp, the Khan of the Golden Horde fled without a blow, 
and Russia was set free for ever. 

2. The invasion and expulsion of the Mongols form the 
first crisis of Russian history ; the invasion and expulsion of 
the Poles form the second. We are so much ac- 
Invasion, customed to regard the Russians as the oppressors 
a.d. 1605. Q ^ ^ p 0 i eSj that we find it difficult to conceive a 
time when the Poles were the oppressors of the Russians. 
Our minds are so preoccupied with the Russian partition of 
Poland, that we almost refuse to believe in the fact that 

It commemorated, not indeed the which in later times went out agaiast 

actual victory of the Don, but the gift the Tartars of the Crimea, 
of a sacred picture by the Kalmucks a Mouravieff, 88. 

of the Don to Demetrius (Strahl, 168), 



328 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



there was once a Polish partition of Russia. Yet so it was, 
and neither the civil nor the ecclesiastical history of Russia 
can be understood without bearing in mind that long family- 
quarrel between the two great Sclavonic nations, to us so 
obscure, to them so ingrained, so inveterate, so intelligible. 
Its political effects may be here dismissed. But its eccle- 
siastical effect was hardly less important than that produced 
by the wars with the Tartars. As the vehement anti- 
Mussulman spirit of the nation was quickened by the one, 
so the vehement anti-Popish spirit received a strong impulse 
from the other. Poland was to Russia the chief representa- 
tive of the Latin Church ; Papal supremacy was in the 
national mind identified with the Polish conquest ; and the 
war between the two nations became identified with a war 
between the two Churches. 1 The nations have now changed 
places in their relative importance, but not more so than 
Spain and England since the days when our own terror and 
hatred of Popery were inspired by the Spanish Armada. 
As the deliverance from the Spanish Armada to the Church 
and State of England, so was the deliverance from the Polish 



1 The following extracts from the 
Eastern travellers who visited Russia in 
the seventeenth century illustrate this 
feeling : — 

' And why do I pronounce the Poles 
accursed? Because they have shown 
themselves more debased and wicked 
than the corrupt worshippers of idols, 
by their cruel conduct to Christians, 
thinking to abolish the very name of 
Orthodox. God perpetuate the empire 
of the Turks for ever and ever ! for they 
take their impost and enter into no 
account of religion, be their subjects 
Christians or Nazarenes, Jews or Samari- 
tans : whereas these accursed Poles were 
not content with taxes and tithes from 
the brethren of Christ, though vi illing to 
serve them ; but, according to the true 
relation we shall nfterwards give of their 
history, they subjected tbem to the 
authority of the enemies of Christ, the 
tyrannical Jews, who did not even permit 
them to build churches, nor leave them 



any priests that knew the mysteries of 
their faith ; but, on the contrary, vio- 
lated their wives and daughters, if they 
at all appeared abroad in the public 
exercise of their religion. When the 
Almighty had seen their tyranny, he 
made them the laughing-stock of their 
enemies, and laid therii low and con- 
temptible, as we shall truly relate of 
them in the sequel, until he had taken 
vengeance of their haughtiness.'— Ma- 
carius, i. 165. 

1 0 you infidels ! O you monsters of 
impurity ! O you hearts of stone ! what 
had the nuns and women done? what 
the girls and boys and infant children, 
that you should murder them ? If you 
had courage, you would have gone to 
fight with the venerable old man who 
has set you as a laughing-stock to the 
world, who has slain your princes and 
grandees, and annihilated your heroes 
and valiant men.' — Ibid. i. 183. 



LECT. X. 



THE POLISH INVASION. 



329 



yoke to the Church and State of Russia. It was the latter 
part of the seventeenth century that witnessed the crisis of 
the struggle. The dynasty of Ruric came to an end in the 
death or the murder of the child Demetrius, last of the race. 
Pretender after pretender, false Demetrius succeeding to 
false Demetrius, occupied the Imperial throne, and the 
Polish Sigismund seized the opportunity of supporting the 
armies of the impostor. Moscow was in their hands, the 
Latin services were chanted in the Kremlin, organs were 
heard in the Patriarchal church, 1 anarchy spread through 
the country. 

Once again it was the Church that saved the Empire, 
and the monastery of Sergius that saved them both. Her- 
siege of the mogenes the Patriarch stood his ground for a time, 
nastS^-D. Dut ne was starved to death, imprisoned almost 
l6l 3- within his own cathedral. Philaret, Archbishop 
of RostofT, maintained the sinking spirit of the people, 
till he too was carried off into captivity. But now, when 
Czar and Patriarch had disappeared, when the holy city of 
Moscow itself was in the hands of strangers and heretics, 
the Trinity Convent still remained erect. Its fortifications, 
its moat, its towers, now served a noble purpose in resisting 
the long siege. Its warlike traditions revived in the persons 
of its soldier-like monks. As Demetrius of the Don had 
received his blessing from Sergius, so the true patriots of 
this second struggle — the Prince Pojarsky, and Minin, chief 
of one of the guilds of Nijni-Novgorod — received their 
mission (as we see again and again repeated in national 
monuments) from the successor of Sergius, the courageous 
Dionysius. The soul of the movement in the convent itself 
was the bursar of immortal memory, Abraham Palitzin. 
Rude pictures still represent, in strange confusion, the mix- 
ture of artillery and apparitions, fighting monks and fighting 
ghosts, which drove back the Polish assailants from the walls 
of the beleaguered fortress. The convent was for the time the 

1 Strahl, 223; a.d. 1605. 



330 



THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 



LECT. X. 



whole empire, and its victory was the deliverance of Russia. 
Moscow was retaken. In the town-house of the Trinity 
Monastery, still bearing the same name, the Prior presided 
at the Council which terminated the civil war, and the 
bursar Abraham announced its results to the assembled 
people. Of the religious aspect of that great deliverance 
many are the memorials which remain, standing monuments 
of the final overthrow of the Latin Church in Russia. Every 
The Sacred one nas heard of the Sacred Gate, the Redeemer's 
Gate - Gate, the chief entrance to the Kremlin, through 
which no Russian, not even the Emperor himself, will pre- 
sume, through which no stranger is allowed, to pass with 
his head covered. The practice dates from this epoch. 
The picture of the Redeemer which hangs over the gate, 
and invests it with this unequalled sanctity, is that which 
went before Pojarsky's army when he set forth at the bidding 
of Dionysius. Within the church of the Archangel, amidst 
the tombs of the Czars, the one canonised saint, the one 
The child conin glittering with jewels and gold, is that of the 
Demetrius. y 0 ung child Demetrius, whose death or martyrdom 
was lamented with an everlasting lamentation as the cause 
of the convulsions which followed upon it. The very exist- 
ence of the present Imperial dynasty is a living tribute to 
the services of the Russian hierarchy at the time of their 
country's greatest need. Now that the race of Ruric was 
passed away, and that the nobles had proved unequal to the 
conflict, the people looked to the clergy as the class from 
whose rank they should take their future chief. Philaret, 
once a humble parish priest, then Archbishop of Rostoff, 
afterwards Patriarch of Moscow, and his wife Martha, sepa- 
rated from her husband in the long wars, and secluded as a 
nun in the convent of Kostroma, were the parents of the 
future Czar. 

Michael Romanoff, son of Philaret, grandson of Roman, 
became the fqunder of the house of Romanoff, the ancestor 



lect. x. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



331 



of Peter and Alexander and Nicholas. So ended the pe- 
Eiection of riod of the middle ages in Russia ; so was wrought 
RomSoff. out the deliverance of the Empire and the Church 
by the monastery of Sergius. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

120 S- I Invasion and dominion of the Tartars. 
1472. j 

1325. Foundation of the Church of Moscow. Peter, the first 

Metropolitan. 

1338. Foundation of the Troitza Monastery by Sergius. 
1354. Alexis, Metropolitan. 

1380. Battle of the Don. Victory over the Tartars by 

Demetrius Donsky. 
1395. Retreat of Tamerlane. 

1448. \ Jonah, first Metropolitan ; independent of the see of 
146 1. j Constantinople. 

1467. Marriage of Ivan III. with Sophia of Constantinople. 

Building of the Cathedral of Moscow. 
1472. Fall of Novgorod the Great. 

Victory of Ivan III. on the Oka. 

1533 
1584. 

1 568. Martyrdom of S. Philip. 
1587. Job, first Patriarch. 
1 598. End of the race of Ruric. 
1598. 
1605. 

1606. j Wars of the Pretenders, and Invasion of the Poles. 
161 3. j Siege of the Troitza Convent. Expulsion of the Poles. 



Ivan IV, or the Terrible. 



Boris Godonof. 



332 THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



LECTURE XL 

THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



The accessible materials for the Life of Nicon are : — 

1. 'The Travels of Macarius in the 17th Century.' Trans- 

lated from the Arabic by the Oriental Translation So- 
ciety (see p. 336). 

2. Bachmeister's ' Life of Nicon. 5 (German.) 

3. Hermann's ' History of Russia.' (German.) 

4. Mouravieff 's * History of the Russian Church,' c. x — xiv. 

5. Palmer's ' Dissertations on the Orthodox Communion/ 

c. v. 

6. * Collins's Account of Russia.' 1667 — 1678. 



There has seldom been a more decisive epoch in the history 
of a nation than that which witnessed the succession of the 
Romanoff dynasty to the throne of Muscovy. A deep calm, 
like that which supervened on the Wars of the Roses in 
England, or on the Wars of the League in France, succeeded 
to the long struggle of the Wars of the Pretenders at the 
commencement of the seventeenth century in Russia. As 
elsewhere, so here, the fortunes of the Church and the nation 
were inseparable. The Czar Michael and the Patriarch 
Philaret ruled together, an event most characteristic of the 
people, and, as a Russian historian observes, 1 remarkable in 

* the annals of the world, which has in no country nor in any 

* time been repeated, of a father as patriarch and his son as 

* sovereign governing together the kingdom.' The nation 



lect. XI. RUSSIAN REFORMATION. 



333 



was freed from the Tartars and the Poles ; the Church was 
freed from the Mussulmans and the Latins ; their indepen- 
dent existence now, for the first time, gave hope for their free 
development. 

It is on this stage, thus newly created, that we have to 
witness the parallel, such as it is, which Russian history pre- 
Eastem Re- sents to the Western Reformation. That event is 
formation. s0 thoroughly a part of our existence that we can 
hardly imagine a Church or a Christian nation which has not 
passed through it in some form or other. Such an excep- 
tion, at first sight, seems to be found in Russia. Yet even 
this is not altogether an exception. It is a fact much to be 
observed, that the Church and the nation of all others in 
Europe the most tenacious of antiquity could not escape a 
Reformation entirely. 1 The nearest approach made in the 
Eastern Church to an adoption of the general doctrines of 
Cyril Lucar ^ Western Reformation was by Cyril Lucar, 
a.d. 1613- ' Greek Patriarch of Alexandria, and afterwards of 
Constantinople. 2 His whole life was a complicated 
struggle against the Jesuits of the Latin and the hierarchy 
of the Greek Church, and a yearning after the Protestant, 
chiefly the Calvinistic, theology of Geneva, Holland, and 
England. Abbot and Laud both encouraged his advances, 
and, whilst his attempts in his own Church ended with his 
barbarous murder at Constantinople, one monument of his 
intercourse with our Church still remains, in our possession 
of his precious gift of the ' Alexandrian manuscript ' of the 
Scriptures. 

In Russia the only direct attempt at a religious revolution 
was that made contemporaneously with the Reformation, 
„ , . and possibly in connection wtth it, in the reign of 

Judaisers 1 TTT . . . r 

under Ivan HI., when a secret but extensive sect 01 
Judaisers took possession of some of the leading 

1 For the Eastern view of the RefoB- 173 ; and an elaborate, though unfavour- 
mation, see Macarius, i. 224. able, account in Neale's Alexandrian 

2 For Cyril Lucar, see a brief sketch Church, ii. 336-454. 
in Dean Waddington's Greek Churchy 



334 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI, 



offices of Church and State, and at one time actually occu- 
pied the Patriarchal chair, and was totally suppressed by 
one of the few acts of violent persecution 1 which have stained 
Reforms of the usual tolerance of the Eastern Church. A 
Ivan iv. more serious purpose of rectifying the abuses, at 
least of the outward system of the Church, was conceived, 
and in part executed, by the awful Ivan, who, as if to make 
himself a warning to all Churches, Protestant as well as 
Papal, combined with his hideous crimes the character, not 
only, as we have sufficiently seen, of a religious ascetic, but 
also of a religious reformer. From his retreat at Alexan- 
droff he issued a denunciation of monastic abuses worthy of 
Luther or Henry VIII., and Horsey describes the delight 
and pastime with which he brought out 'seven rebellious 
4 big fat friars, one after another, with a cross and beads 
* in one hand, and, through the Emperor's great favour, a 
1 boar-spear in the other, to be exposed to a wild boar 
1 fierce and hungry, who caught and crushed his victims, as 
' a cat doth a mouse, tearing their weeds in pieces till he 
' came to the flesh, blood, and bones, and so devoured them 
' for a prey.' 2 But Ivan was not the man to carry through 
a steady and deliberate plan. One only permanent work he 
left behind, no doubt of infinite importance in this direction, 
a printing-press at Moscow; 3 and the first printed Russian 
volume, still preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Peters- 
burg, is the version of the Acts of the Apostles dating from 
his reign. 

All these attempts were more or less isolated, and abor- 
tive. It is not till the period on which we have now entered 
that the true work of the Russian Reformation begins. Two 
leading figures fix our attention. The first, who guides us 
through the period of transition from the middle of the seven- 
teenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth, is the 



1 See Palmer's Orthodox Communion, 142 ; also a Russian Historical romance 
Called 'The Heretic' 

2 Horsey, 178. * Strahl, s8& 



lect. XI. RUSSIAN REFORMATION. 



335 



Patriarch Nicon. The second, who will guide us through 
the period of completion, is the Emperor Peter. 

Our present concern is with the Patriarch Nicon. In 
naming his name we feel at once the immense disadvantage 
ThePam- of Eastern as compared with Western history 
arch Nicon. jjow f ew 0 f us have ever heard of him : how im- 
penetrable even to those who have heard of him is the dark- 
ness of the original language in which his biography is 
wrapped up ! Yet he is unquestionably the greatest charac- 
ter in the annals of the Russian hierarchy ; and, even in the 
annals of the Eastern hierarchy generally, there are but few 
who can be ranked before him as ecclesiastical statesmen. 
Photius in the ninth century, and Chrysostom in the fourth, 
in some respects remind us of the career of Nicon. Indeed, 
the similarity may be fairly taken as a proof of the identity 
of spirit which breathed, at the interval of six centuries, 
through the two main branches of the Eastern Church. He 
was a Russian Chrysostom. He was also, in coarse and 
homely proportions, a Russian Luther and a Russian Wol- 
sey. But here the differences are far more palpable than 
those which divide him from the Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople. Through all the obscurity which hangs over him, 
there is yet discernible a genuine human character combin- 
ing with a wilful barbaric obstinacy, as of an overgrown 
spoiled child, the caustic humour, the indefatigable energy, 
of a statesman of the extremest West. In the series of 
portraits professing to represent the hierarchy of ancient 
Russia, his is the first that imprints itself on our minds 
with the stamp of individual originality. In the various 
monasteries over which he presided, his grim countenance 
looks down upon us with blood-shot eyes, red complexion, 
and brows deeply knit. The vast length of his pontifical 
robes, preserved as relics of his magnificence, reveals to us 
the commanding stature, no less than seven feet, which he 
shares with so many of his more distinguished countrymen. 
And his story, if it could be told with the details— many of 



336 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. lect. xr. 



which lie buried in the Russian archives, but some of which 
have been published and translated in well-known works — 
is as full of dramatic complexity, and pathetic interest, as 
was ever conceived in ' Timon of Athens ' or ' King Lear.' 

I pass over the events of his early life. Born in the 
troubles of the wars of the Pretenders, raised from the 
ranks of the peasants to the successive dignities of Archi- 
mandrite of the Solovetzky Monastery and Metropolitan 
of the great Novgorod, 1 he finally was appointed to the 
Patriarchate of Moscow. In that high office he ruled the 
Church and State of Russia for six eventful years. 

One curious source of information we possess of this 
period, which I shall frequently quote. As in the reign of 
journal of I yan we na d the advantage of the observations of 
Macanus. an E n gii S n eye-witness from the West, so in the 
Patriarchate of Nicon we have the advantage of a Syrian 
eye-witness from the East. Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, 
had travelled into Russia to collect money for his distant 
see, and was accompanied by his Archdeacon Paul, who has 
left us a minute journal of all that occurred, having, as he 
says, 1 roused his languid mind to the task, and stretched 
4 towards the object his recoiling pen.' It is valuable as 
giving us the impressions of a Christian from the remote 
East on seeing the Church of Russia, and thus enabling us 
to estimate the difference between the two ; and yet more 
as giving us the impression produced on the garrulous Arch- 
deacon by the contrast between the shadowy Oriental prelates 
and the robust and vigorous character of the Patriarch of 
Moscow. 

Nicon, as I have said, was the first Russian reformer. 
But we must not expect from this parallel a direct reforma- 
tion of doctrine or of philosophy. Such a reformation has 
never taken place in any branch of the Eastern Church ; 
partly because it was less needed than in the West, partly 



1 He had first been a married pa- third child entered a convent. Levesque, 
jrochial priest, but on the loss of his iv. 65. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS REFORMS. 



337 



because the whole character of the nations composing the 
Eastern Church has set in another direction. But still 
Nicon was, so far as we know, the first Eastern ecclesiastic, 
with the single exception of Cyril Lucar, who saw that the 
time was come for giving life to the ceremonial observances, 
and a moral direction to the devotional feelings, of Oriental 
worship. 

He set himself with stern severity and indomitable 
courage to root out the various abuses of the Russian 
hierarchy, especially the one crying; evil unfortu- 

His reforms. , • * 

nately not yet extinct — intemperance. To this 
day they remember, with a mixture of veneration and hatred, 
what they expressively called the 'hedgehog hand with 
which he kept them down. 

In his own person he exhibited a new type of pastoral 
virtues. Of unbounded munificence, he founded hospitals 
and almshouses in his successive sees for orphans, widows, 
and aged persons. In the famine which devastated the 
city of Novgorod, he showed a generosity worthy of Carlo 
Borromeo at Milan, or of Francke at Halle. He visited the 
prisons, 1 if not with the philanthropy of a Howard, at least 
with a promptitude of justice rare in Eastern Christendom, 
' on his own personal examination releasing the prisoners 
1 if he found them innocent.' 2 

He broke through practices both of Church and State to 
which long custom had in Russia given an almost religious 
consecration. Through his intervention, the Oriental seclu- 
sion of the female sex was first infringed. At his injunction 
— still, it is true, fenced about by many precautions — the 
Empress, who had never before entered a church except 
under cover of night, now appeared publicly by day. Sacred 
pictures to which, 3 in his judgment, an idolatrous veneration 
was shown, were taken away. The baptisms of the Western 
Church, of which the validity is to this day denied by the 

1 Levesque, iv. 68. 3 Mouravieff, 196. 

3 Levesque, iv. 76. Strahl, 229; a.d. 1664. 1 He is no lover of images.' Collins, 13 

Z 



33« 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XL 



Church of Constantinople, were by his sanction first recog- 
nised in the Church of Russia. It was, 1 indeed, granted onlv 
after a long and stormy discussion ; and even then conceded 
only to the Latin Church. Still it was an immense advance 
in charity, and was the first opening of a door of sympathy 
towards the West. 

From so decayed a stock as the Byzantine Church, 
especially after its subjugation to the Ottoman power, no 
great accession of new life could be expected. But it was at 
least a pardonable feeling which led the Russian reformer 
to look in the first instance to that ancient source of the 
civilisation of Russia, and, in earlier times, of the civilisation 
of Europe. The advances in education first introduced under 
Ivan the Terrible, and then interrupted by the wars of the 
Pretenders, started under Nicon into fresh life. The printing- 
press was again set to work. Greek and Latin were now first 
taught in the schools. 2 The 'gross and harsh intonations 
1 of the Muscovites,' as they are called by the Syrian travellers, 
now gave way to the sweet chants 3 of the Cossack choristers, 
brought partly from Poland, partly from Greece, the first 
beginnings of that vocal music which has since become the 
glory of the Russian worship. The Bible, 4 which he had 
profoundly studied for himself in his youth, he now sought 
to exhibit in the purest form of which the Sclavonic transla- 
tion admitted. Deputations of learned scholars were sent to 
the Grecian monasteries to collect manuscripts to carry on 
the collations of the sacred books, which the Russian monk 
Maximus in the previous generation had died in attempting 
to accomplish. 

Chiefest of all was the change, even yet hardly appre- 
ciated in his country, and entirely without an example in 
His the rest of the East at that time — the revival of 

preaching, preaching. From his lips was first heard, after 
many centuries, the sound of a living practical sermon. We 



* Macarius, ii. 85. See Palmer's Orthodox Communion, xii. xiii. 
1 Levesque, iv. 76. 3 Macarius, ii. 231 ; Haxthausen, in. 114. * Levcsque, iv. 70. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS REFORMS. 



339 



have the impression which this revolution produced on the 
mind of the Archdeacon of Antioch : — 

' Remark, brother,' says the Archdeacon Paul, 4 what hap- 
pened now — an occurrence which surprised and confused our 
understandings. It was, that so far were they from being con- 
tent with their lengthened services, that the Deacon brought to 
the Patriarch the book of Lessons, which they opened before 
him ; and he began to read the lesson for this day, on the sub- 
ject of the Second Advent ; and not only did he read it, but he 
preached and expounded the meanings of the words to the 
standing and silent assembly ; until our spirits were broken 
within us during the tedious while. God preserve us and save 
us!' 1 

And on another occasion : — 

s The Patriarch was not satisfied with the Ritual, but he must 
needs crown all with an admonition and copious sermon. God 
grant him moderation ! His heart did not ache for the Emperor 
nor for the tender infants, standing uncovered in the intense 
cold. What should we say to this in our country ? ' 2 

A third example gives us at once a more pleasing impres- 
sion, and a clearer notion of his manner of preaching. The 
Czar was going forth to war : — 

The Patriarch blessed him, and then stood before him, and 
raised his voice in prayer for him, reading a beautiful exordium, 
with parables and proverbs from the ancients, such as how God 
granted victory to Moses over Pharaoh, &c. ; from modern his- 
tory, such as the victory of Constantine over Maximianus and 
Maxentius, &c. ; adding many examples of this nature, and 
with much prolixity of discourse moving on at his leisure, like a 
copious stream of flowing water. When he stammered and 
confused his words, or made mistakes, he set himself right again 
with perfect composure. No one seemed to find fault with him 
or to be tired of his discourse ; but all were silent and attentive, 
as if each were a slave before his master.' 3 

These, or such as these, were amongst the most conspi- 
cuous of the reforms of Nicon ; very small according to our 

1 Macarius, i. 406. 2 Ibid. 40, 51, 52. * Ibid. ii. 59. 

Z 2 



340 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



Western notions, yet still in the only direction suited for an 
Oriental Church. Let those who doubt turn to the temperate 
hopes of an Eastern reformation as expressed by one cer- 
tainly not indulgent to superstition, who added to a wide 
range of liberal learning a special knowledge of the Christian 
East. 1 Or let any one who knows anything of modern 
Athens say who amongst the English and American mission- 
aries in those regions are named as the most undoubted 
benefactors of the Church of Greece, — those who have at- 
tempted to subvert the existing forms of faith, or those who 
by education and social intercourse have infused a new life 
into those forms? 2 Such considerations may induce us to 
pardon the shortcomings and hail the genuine efforts of the 
Patriarch Nicon. But, in carrying out his schemes, two 
points exhibit the rude elements both of his own individual 
character and also of his Church and country. 

First, it is impossible not to be struck by the savage 
spirit in which he fulfilled his task. We are not altogether 
His savage unaccustomed to rough action and speech in 
manners. Martin Luther and John Knox, but we must ex- 
pect something more in the Scythian atmosphere of Russia. 
Again I refer to the journal of Archdeacon Paul. ' He was,' 
says the Archdeacon, 4 a very butcher amongst the clergy. 
6 His janissaries are perpetually going round the city ; and 
* when they find any priest or monk in a state of intoxica- 
e tion, they carry him to prison, strip him, and scourge him. 3 
1 His prisons are full of them, galled with heavy chains and 
■ logs of wood on their necks and legs, or they sift flour day 
' and night in the bakehouse.' 4 The deserts of Siberia were 
filled with dissolute clergy banished there with their wives 
and children. 5 An instance is recorded, hardly credible, 
but too characteristic to be omitted, perhaps not so much 
of his wild severity as of his barbarian humour. It was at 



1 Dean Waddington's Greek Church, 
chap viii. — x. 

3 I allude, of course, to the excellent 
effects of the Greek school established 



at Athens by Mr. and Mrs. Hill. 
3 Macarius, ii. 364. 

* Ibid. ii. 76. 

• Ibid. 78. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS REFORMS. 



341 



one of the numerous banquets attended by the Patriarch of 
Antioch, that Nicon, partly to show off the wonders of his 
master's vast dominions, partly to satisfy the curiosity of his 
own inquisitive mind, called before him thirty chiefs of a 
distant Kalmuck tribe, named, from the appearance of their 
physiognomies, the dog-faced tribe, or (as a euphemism) the 
tribe of the dog- faced saint, S. Christopher. 

* As soon as they entered, the whole assembly was struck 
with horror. They bared their heads, and bowed to the 
Patriarch with great veneration, crouching to the ground all 
in a lump like pigs. After various questions as to their mode 
of life, and travelling, and warfare, he said. "Is it really true 
that you eat the flesh of men ? " They laughed, and answered, 
" We eat our dead, and we eat dogs ; how then should we not 
eat men ? " He said, " How do you eat men ? " They replied, 
" When we have conquered a man, we cut away his nose, and 
then carve him into pieces and eat him." He said, " I have a 
man here who deserves death : I will send for him and present 
him to you, that you may eat him." Hereupon they began 
earnestly to entreat him, saying, " Good Lord, whenever you 
have any men deserving of death, do not trouble yourself about 
their guilt or their punishment ; but give them us to eat, and 
you will do us a great kindness." ' 

The unfortunate victim, with whom Nicon intended 
to play off this experiment, was no less a person than the 
Metropolitan of Mira. It happened that amidst other 

* odious deformities ' of himself and his companions on a 
recent visit to Moscow, they were found smoking tobacco ; 
and all, except himself, were sent into banishment. Nicon 
was still, however, enraged against him ; ' for,' says the 
Syrian Archdeacon, ' no crime with him is ever forgiven : 
1 and he now sent to have him brought to these savages that 

* they might eat him. But he was not to be found, having 
' hid himself.' 1 

It may be hoped, however, that this was only a severe 
practical jest ; for on a subsequent occasion, when the 

1 Macarius, i. 430. 



342 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. lect. xi. 



Patriarch saw the astonishment of the Syrians at the dog- 
faced tribe, ' he came forward,' says the Archdeacon, ' and 

* taking me by the hand led me before the ministers and the 
1 assembled crowd, called the savages, as if to eat me, that 

* he might have his laugh and sport with us, whilst I was 
' shuddering and quaking with fear. So also he did with 
' others.' One, who was a deacon, he actually delivered 
into their hands. As soon as they laid hold of him they 
tore his clothes to tatters in scrambling for him, and it was 
with difficulty that he was rescued, by redeeming him with 
fish and money, which the Patriarch gave as his price. The 
poor deacon, from fright and horror, 1 lay ill for a long 
time afterwards. 

Another still more serious instance is related. Three 
deacons had married again after the death of their wives by 
the plague. As soon as the Patriarch had heard of this, he 
bound them in fetters, and sent them to the Trinity Monas- 
tery, commanding that they should be confined in a wooden 
cell, without food, till they died of misery. The Patriarch 
of Antioch happened to see them on his visit, and was so 
much troubled by their tears and moans, that he interested 
himself on their behalf, and obtained their liberty. 2 We 
may hope that they, like the deacon just mentioned in the 
hands of the dog-faced tribe, were placed there rather for 
terror than with any deliberate intention of fulfilling the 
threat. But the incidents are worthy of the countrymen of 
Ivan the Terrible, as we have seen, and of Peter the Great, 
as we shall see. 

The second point in Nicon's career is more important. 

With all his energy and love of knowledge, he was a 
true son of the Eastern Church, in his rigid observance of 

dh its ordinances and ritual. He shared but little in 
ence to the the tolerant and indulgent feelings which have 
Russian usua ii v marked the Russian policy towards mem- 
bers of other Churches. Perceiving, as he passed through 

1 Macarius, ii. 164. a Ibid. ii. 151. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS REFORMS. 



343 



the streets, that the European merchants showed no marks 
of reverence to the sacred pictures, he drove them out of 
Moscow. He made a point of compelling all foreigners to 
appear as such, or incorporate themselves into the Russian 
nation by baptism. An Armenian merchant offered him 
the sum of fifty thousand dinars to retain his long white 
beard ; but Nicon's only answer was, ' Be baptized ; become 
like one of us.' 1 The merchant refused, and the Armenians 
were banished. 

In one direction only his mind was entirely, even sensi- 
tively, open to receive new impressions. That direction 
and Greek was towards the ancient Church and Empire of 
ritual. Constantinople. i I am a Russian,' he said, ' and 

* the son of a Russian ; 2 but my faith and my religion are 

* Grecian.' 

Such a feeling was natural, even in a more civilised 
rnind than Nicon's. The Church of Constantinople even 
then retained, as we may see from the relations of Cyril 
Lucar to the English Church, something of a European 
influence ; and any Russian churchman of wider views 
would naturally turn to the ancient metropolis of his faith. 
But it had, in Nicon's case, this unfortunate effect. From 
Constantinople, as it then was, no new spiritual life could 
be expected ; at best an antiquarian and ceremonial form 
of religion, which not only narrowed the horizon of the 
reformer who looked to it for assistance, but turned his 
energies into subordinate channels, and aggravated the 
ceremonial tendencies already existing with too much force 
in his own Church. With the vast field which Nicon had 
before him, it is mournful to see the power which might 
have reanimated the whole ecclesiastical system employed on 
the correction of minute errors of ritual which can only be 
discovered through a microscope. 

In order to understand the importance ascribed to them 
either by him or by his opponents, we must bear in mind 

Macarius, ii. 23. 2 Ibid. U. 86. 



344 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. lect. xi. 



the almost Chinese minuteness of the civil and ecclesiastical 
ceremonial of the Russian Church and Court at that time. 
He saw worked in pearls on a vestment of a former metro- 
politan the authentic copy of the Nicene Creed, and per- 
ceived that the word ' holy ' had been inserted before the 
words ' giver of life.' Deputations went to Athos for correct 
copies of the service-books. The printing-press, lately es- 
tablished by him in Moscow, was set to work to circulate 
new rubrics. 1 His earliest pleasure palace was an imitation 
of the Iberian convent in Athos ; and for him it was that 
the copy of the picture in that convent was bought, which 
still occupies the most distinguished place amongst the 
sacred pictures of Moscow. 2 Stern as he was, he was con- 
stantly asking questions from the Syrian strangers, to set his 
own ceremonial straight. 3 Benedictions with three fingers 
instead of two, a white altar cloth instead of an embroidered 
one, pictures kissed only twice a year, the cross signed the 
wrong way, wrong inflections in pronouncing the Creed, 4 — 
these were the points to which he devoted his gigantic 
energy, and on which, as we shall see, he encountered the 
most frantic opposition. 

We are filled with surprise as we read of the contentions 
occasioned by these points, to us so infinitely insignificant. 
But remember the controversies which have rent our own 
Church in the sixteenth century (and can we altogether 
except the nineteenth ?) ; remember the parties and the 
mobs which have been formed to attack or to defend a 
surplice, to reform or to oppose a rubric, and perhaps we 
shall feel that we, the descendants and the followers of the 
Puritans on one side, or of Laud on the other, are not en- 
titled to cast the first stone at Nicon or his adversaries. 

For the time his powerful hand repressed any overt out- 
break : but some murmured inwardly ; men, such as the 
Syrian Archdeacon observes are to be found in every 



1 Macarius, ii. 85. 
* Ibid. ii. 173. 



8 Ibid. ii. 414. 
* Ibid. ii. 85. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS REFORMS. 



345 



nation, ' of a heavy nature and understanding, saying with- 
' in themselves, " We will not alter our books nor 
to his * " our rites and ceremonies which we received 

changes. t (i q{ ^ „ , ^ ^ ^ force ^ 

* speak openly, for the anger of the Patriarch is not to be 

* withstood ; witness what he did with the Bishop of Ko- 
lomna.' Take two instances of these suppressed murmurs 
and of his mode of dealing with them, from several points 
of view highly illustrative of this contest. 

He watched with jealousy (herein agreeing with many 
in the coming generation who else would have been most 
opposed to him) the introduction of pictures painted after 
the European fashion into the houses of the Russian nobles. 
Listen to Archdeacon Paul's account of his treatment of this 
subject, so closely interwoven, as we have seen, with the 
whole religious feeling of Russia : — 

' Some of the Muscovite painters had learned to paint new 
pictures in the Prankish and Polish style. 2 And whereas this 
Patriarch is a great tyrant and loves the Grecian forms to an ex- 
treme, he sent his people and collected from every house wherein 
they were found such paintings as I have mentioned, even from 
the palaces of the grandees. 3 Then, putting out the eyes of the 
pictures, he sent them round the city by janissaries, publishing 
an Imperial proclamation in the absence of the Czar that who- 
soever should henceforth be found painting after such models 
should be severely punished. . . . When they saw, therefore, 
what the Patriarch had done to the pictures on this occasion, 
they judged that he had sinned greatly. Vowing imprecations 
upon him, and making a tumult, they pronounced him to be an 
open enemy to holy images. Whilst they were in this disposition 
of mind the plague appeared, and the sun was darkened on the 
afternoon of the 12th of August. They immediately said, "All 
this that has befallen us is through the wrath of God for what 
our Patriarch has been committing, in contempt of our holy 

1 Macarius, ii. 86. a custom so alien to the religious feel- 

2 Ibid. ii. 57. ings of Russia, or because of the licen- 
* A similar restriction is said to have tious songs and dances with which it 

been put on instrumental music in pri- was accompanied. Levesque, iv. 64. 
vate parties, either to check in its growth * Macarius, ii. 50. 



34<5 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



images.* They were all so violent against him that they made 
an attempt to kill him, for the Czar was absent, and there were 
but few troops. ... It was on the return of the Czar that the 
Patriarch, obtaining his first opportunity of making a discourse 
in his presence, proceeded at great length to show that the 
painting after this Frank fashion was unlawful ; and he called 
on our Lord tne Patriarch of Antioch to bear witness that cer- 
tain pictures before them were on the model of the Frank paint- 
ings. [They anathematised, therefore, and excommunicated 
any one who should continue painting like them, and any one 
who should place them in his house.] Touching them with his 
hand one by one, and showing them to the congregation, he 
threw them on the iron pavement of the church to break them 
to pieces, and ordered them to be burnt. But as the Czar is ex- 
tremely religious, and has great fear of God, and was standing 
near us with his head uncovered, attending in humble silence 
to the discourse, he entreated the Patriarch with a suppressed 
voice, saying, " No, Father ! do not burn them ; rather bury 
them in the earth." And so were they disposed of. Every time 
the Patriarch took up one of those pictures in his hand, he cried 
aloud, saying, " This is the picture from the house of the noble 
such an one, or of such an one n (all grandees of the empire). 
His design was to put them to shame, that the rest of the con- 
gregation might see it and take warning by their example. 5 1 

The next instance carries us nearer home : 2 — 

1 The Patriarch, out of his great love for the caps of the 
Greeks, had just now made for himself a new white latia, in the 
cut of those of the Greek monks. . . . The headdresses of the 
Russian monks are very ugly, covering their eyes, and with ears 
flapping down upon their shoulders. With difficulty can their 
faces be discerned, especially when they look upon the ground. 
As for the rest of their clothes, the filth of their dress is very 
great ; for they never wash their shirts, but wear them continually 
till they drop off. . . « The Patriarch, conscious of the great 
love the Czar bore him, and sensible of the advantage afforded 
him by the presence of the Patriarch of Antioch, mentioned the 
subject first to him, and then deposited, as usual, his new head- 
dress in the sacristy secretly. Then he brought our master to 
intercede with the Czar that he might wear them : for he much 

1 Macarius, ii. 50. 2 Ibid. ii. 227. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS PERSONAL HISTORY. 



347 



feared the people, lest they should say that he had annulled 
their ancient customs and the clerical habits worn by their 
earliest saints. And so, indeed, it happened to him afterwards; 
for when he put them on the people murmured greatly, but 
secretly through their fear of the Czar. Our master, therefore, 
approached the Czar, and said, "We are four Patriarchs in the 
known world, and the dress of us all is alike : by our consent and 
permission this our brother has been made Patriarch in the 
place of the Pope of Rome ; and a token of the Pope is that he 
is distinguished by his white dress. If it is your majesty's plea- 
sure, I should wish that the Patriarch should wear like us this 
headdress which I have newly had made for him." The Czar, 
through his love for the Patriarch, was delighted at hearing this 
speech, and answered, " Bascliaske Oobro ! " i.e. " Very well, 
Father." Then taking the cap from our master, he kissed it, 
and commanded the Patriarch of Moscow to put it on. The 
Patriarch had no sooner done so than his face was lighted up 
with joy, and the Grecian headdress fitted him splendidly ; for 
his former cap shaded his countenance too much. . . . But 
when the heads of the clergy and the heads of convents, the 
priests and the laity then present, saw his new dress, they mur- 
mured much, saying amongst themselves, " See how he has 
changed the dress of the heads of the clergy here, which they 
received by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, from the time we be- 
came Christians, at the hands of S. Peter, and does not the earth 
tremble at his ace, who, having been hitherto dressed as a Mus- 
covite, has made himself a Greek?" . . . Gradually, however,' 
the Archdeacon proceeds, ' the elegance of the Greek costume 
made its way. Had any of the Monks of the Holy Mountain 
[Athos] been here with loads of headdresses, they would have 
sold vast numbers at a very high price. Those who obtained 
them showed faces brilliant with delight. They began to com- 
plain of the burdensome weight of their old latias, and threw 
them off their heads, saying, " If this Greek dress were not of 
divine origin, the Patriarch would not have been the first to 
wear it." ' 

We have now, I trust, formed some general conception 
of the character of Nicon. 

I have said that he was not only an Eastern Luther but 
an Eastern Wolsey. His magnificence was on a scale before 



348 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



unparalleled. His favourite monasteries, four in number, 
he built anew from the ground, 'some living after him, 
' some dying with him.' The Patriarchal palace in the 
Kremlin is his work For three years the ablest architects 
in Russia were employed upon it ; kitchens, stoves, chapels, 
such as were never seen before, rose within it. It still 
remains opposite to the north door of the cathedral. But 
it was not only in outward aspect that his history resembles 
that of Wolsey. We are now approaching the more human 
and dramatic elements of his story, which, whilst they give 
to it a higher than any mere ecclesiastical interest, justify us 
in assigning to it a place in history which the peculiarity of 
his ecclesiastical views would hardly sanction. 

It may be supposed, from the traits already given, that 
Nicon's conduct had made him many enemies. His in- 
novations, as we have seen, and as we shall see still more 
clearly in the next century, touched the prejudices of the 
Russian people in their tenderest point. His severity ex- 
asperated the clergy. His insolence enraged the nobles. 
The Syrian traveller describes how the highest functionaries, 
who used to enter the presence of the Patriarch unbidden, 
were now kept waiting on the threshold ; and when they 
entered, it was with extreme fear — fear many degrees more 
than they paid to the sovereign, he sitting and they stand- 
h* f iend * n ^' ' There was,' says the Russian historian, 
ship with the 'only one man who sincerely loved Nicon, and 
Czar Alexis. ( to y m a } one was t h e Patriarch devoted with all 

' his soul, and zealous even to excess for his glory.'" 1 That 
man was the Czar Alexis, son of Michael, and father of 
Peter. He had first seen Nicon years before, when he 
came up to Moscow from a distant monastery, and had 
been greatly struck by his tall stature and manly eloquence 
and the report of his holy life, and given him the convent 
of Novospasky, in which the first princes and princesses of 
the Romanoff dynasty were buried. From that time sprang 

1 Mouravieff, 215. 



lect. xi. HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH ALEXIS. 



349 



up their long and close intimacy. Whilst head of the con- 
vent he came every Friday to the royal chapel in the Krem- 
lin for the purpose of conversing with Alexis after the ser- 
vice. When raised to the see of Novgorod he went up 
every winter to consult with him, and procured the gift of 
the Lake of Valdai as a halting-place on the road, where he 
built the Iberian monastery of which I have before spoken. 
When raised at last by the entreaties of the Czar, and by his 
affection for him, to the Patriarchate, they became insepar- 
able. ' They appeared,' I again quote the Russian his- 
torian, 1 'as one and the same person, in all acts of govern- 
c ment, passing all their days together, in the church, in 
' the council-chamber, and at the friendly board. To unite 
' themselves still closer by the bonds of spiritual relation- 
' ship, the Patriarch became godfather to all the children of 
1 his sovereign, and they both made a mutual vow never to 
' desert each other on this side the grave.' This friendship 
was cemented in the strongest manner, during the great 
plague which ravaged Moscow, a few years before its ap- 
pearance in London. The Czar, who was absent, begged 
the Patriarch to attend his family to the Trinity Monastery, 
he himself (it is a trait not quite in keeping with his usual 
spirit) living in the hills and forests, ' in a tent under the 
' rain and snow, with no other companion but his fire.' 2 

The Syrian Archdeacon gives us glimpses of the two 
men, both on festive and on solemn occasions. The Patriarch 
invites Alexis to a banquet. First came an interchange of 
magnificent presents, 'from the Czar to the Patriarch and 
' from the Patriarch to the Czar, flowing like the Black into 

* the White Sea, and like the White into the Black Sea. 3 
' The Patriarch stood at the top of the room, and the Czar 

* went each time 4 to the door to bring in the presents with 
1 his own hands with great fatigue, calling to the nobles 

* to deliver them quickly, and he was like a waiting slave, 

* wonderful to relate. . . Afterwards the Patriarch bowed to 

* Mouravieff, 303. 1 Macarius, ii. 49. 3 Ibid. ii. 23a. * Ibid. 231. 



35o 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. lect. xl 



* him, and expatiated on his kindness, and seated him at a 

* royal table in the corner of the room [the place of honour]. 
' . . . The Czar, after the banquet, rose and filled cups of 

* wine for all present, to the health of the Patriarch, which, 

* as the company emptied them, they placed inverted on 
' their heads, to show that they had drunk the health com- 

* plete. In like manner the Patriarch filled cups for them 

* all to the health of the Czar, and these, being emptied, 

* they placed on their heads, kneeling before and after.' 

Another picture is that of the two friends during the 
sermon. ' What most excited our admiration was to see the 

* Czar standing with his head uncovered, whilst the Patriarch 
' wore his crown before him ; the one with his hands crossed 

* in humility, the other displaying them with the action and 

* boldness of an orator addressing his auditor ; the one 

* bowing his bare head in silence to the ground, the other 

* bending his towards him with his crown upon it ; the one 

* guarding his senses and breathing low, the other making 

* his voice ring like a loud bell ; the one as if he were a 

* slave, the other as his lord. . . When the Patriarch had 

* concluded his discourse with the prayer, he bowed to the 
' Czar, and they stood back a second time.' 1 

It is from such scenes as these that Western, especially 
English, writers have represented Nicon, some from a 
favourable, some from an unfavourable, point of view, as an 
Eastern Hildebrand or Becket, maintaining the independence 
of the hierarchy against the civil power, and trampling the 
Imperial government under his feet. It is true that there 
were certain points in which questions of this kind were 
stirred, such as that of the new code, reducing to the civil 
courts cases which had once belonged to the Patriarchal 
courts, and restraining the accumulation of ecclesiastical 
property. It is true also that the devout, and in some re- 
spects childlike, or childish, disposition of Alexis placed him 
for a time under a kind of awe, inspired by the stern cha- 

1 Macarius, ii. 59. 



lect. xr. HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH ALEXIS. 



351 



racter and high office of Nicon, such as reminds us of our 
Saxon kings in the presence of Dunstan. ' I fear,' 1 he said, 
in answer to a deacon who entreated his permission to offi- 
ciate against the orders of Nicon, ' I fear the Patriarch Nicon, 
' who would perhaps give me his crozier and say, " Take it 
' " and tend the monks and priests yourself : I do not con- 
* " tradict you in your command of your favourites and 
' " troops ; why then do you set yourself against me in the 
■ " concerns of priests and monks ? " ' 

It is true also that his whole conduct, when he assumed 
the Patriarchal chair, was that of a man who was prepared 
for a vehement opposition. He had entered on his post 
immediately after his removal of the relics of Philip, the one 
martyr 2 of the Russian Church, to the Cathedral of Moscow, 
by which, possibly, 3 (although of this there is no intimation), 
he may have meant to express his own anticipations for him- 
self ; and it was only after he had taken from the Prince and 
people a solemn promise of obedience to him, as their chief 
shepherd and spiritual father, that he consented to undertake 
the office. 

But the whole view taken of this scene, and of Nicon's 
character, by Russians themselves, and the whole tenor of 
the story which I am about to relate, forbid us to ascribe to 
Nicon any deliberate policy of opposition to the sovereign 
power of the State, such as that which has animated so many 
of the Popes, prelates, and clergy of the West. His fears on 
the occasion of his entrance on the Patriarchal see were not 
from his devoted friend Alexis, but from the adherents of his 
retrograde predecessor, the Patriarch Joseph, who had already 
furiously denounced him as an innovator. 4 His enmity was 
with a barbarous nobility and ignorant clergy, not with the 
Czar ; and when at last it did reach the Czar also, the rup- 
ture took place on purely personal grounds. We hear enough 



1 Macarius, ii. 249. 

2 See Lecture X. 

3 Palmer's Dissertations on the Or- 
thodox Communion, p. 56. 



* Levesque, iv. 62. Compare Col- 
lins, p. 15 : ' He began to innovate some 
things, or rather reform them.' 



352 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



of the civil and spiritual conflicts in Western Europe ; let us not 
thrust them into a story of a simple and natural quarrel be- 
tween man and man, with which they have little or no concern. 

The nobles watched their opportunity to separate the 
two friends. They found it in a protracted absence of the 
TT . , Czar on a two years' expedition to Poland, and in 

His quarrel J _ * . . 7 

with the the failure of a Swedish campaign which Nicon had 
recommended. The Czar himself had had high 
words with the Patriarch once before in the church, from 
some unexpected rudeness. Every instance of insolence, and 
doubtless there were many, was eagerly exaggerated. Their 
intercourse ceased ; and, as the historian of the event ob- 
serves, 1 when once a mutual misunderstanding is established 
between those who have once loved each other, the very 
recollection of their former friendship poisons the wounds 
of their hearts, because the change itself in their mutual re- 
lations as felt as a sort of wrong and offence by both. The 
nobles gained strength. Their code respecting the monastic 
property was reintroduced. One of them called his dog by 
the name of Nicon, taught it to sit up on its hind legs and 
to cross its paws in the offensive form of benediction which 
Nicon had introduced. 2 Another, in a grand procession, 
struck one of the Patriarch's courtiers. The Patriarch de- 
manded satisfaction in vain. He waited for an interview 
with the Czar, at one of their accustomed meetings in 
church, on a high festival, 3 the ioth of July. The Czar was 
kept away, and in his stead Nicon found one of the nobles 
come to announce his master's absence, and to reproach the 
Patriarch with his insolent pomp. 

Nicon felt that the crisis of his life was come, which he 
N> , had forestalled in the promise of obedience ex- 
signation, acted on his accession to the Patriarchal see. In 
a.d. 1658. a Durst 0 f w ii£ i n dig na tion he came forth, after 
the completion of the service, from the sacred gates of 
the cathedral sanctuary, and, with that well-known voice 

1 Mouravieffj 218. s Levesque, iv. 75. 8 Bachmeiste 47. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS RESIGNATION. 



353 



which sounded like the mighty bell of the church through 
the whole building, announced that he was no longer Patri- 
arch. ' I leave my place,' he said, ' conscious of my many 
4 sins before God, which have brought this plague and woe 
1 on Moscow.' 1 He took from the Patriarchal throne the 
sacred staff of Peter the first Metropolitan, and laid it on the 
most venerable of the sacred pictures. He threw off his 
episcopal robes, wrote a hasty letter in the vestry to announce 
his intention to the Czar, and sate down on the raised plat- 
form 2 whence he had so often preached to Czar and people, 
awaiting the answer. The answer never came ; it was in- 
tercepted by his enemies. Amidst the terrors and lamenta- 
tions of the people, who tried to detain him by closing the 
doors of the cathedral, by taking the horses out of his car- 
riage, by blocking up the gate of the town through which he 
was to pass, he went out on foot, 3 and returned no more to 
the Patriarchal Palace, wrote once again to the Czar, entreat- 
ing his forgiveness for his sudden departure, and plunged 
into the solitude, first of one, and then another, of his various 
monasteries. 

In a moment of uncontrollable anger he had made a 
sacrifice which he could not support. But his adversaries 
took him at his word The see was declared vacant, and 
he, having returned from his more distant place of retire- 
ment to the one which was nearest to Moscow, remained 
there devouring his soul in the bitterness of a man who has 
made a false step, which he longs in vain to retrace. Let us 
follow him for a moment to the scene of these wild regrets. 
It is a scene eminently characteristic of the Russian Church. 
Convent of The last occasion on which he and Alexis had 
jera^akm, met m friendly intercourse was at the consecra- 
a.d. i6 54 . t j on 0 f a sma u wooden church on one of the 
Patriarchal estates, about forty miles from Moscow. They 

1 Bachmeister, 46- 3 He got through by waiting for the 

3 Or on the lowest step of the Patri- passage of some coaches. Bachmeister, 

archal throne. (Bachmeister, p. 47, who 47- 

tells the story somewhat differently). 

r \ 



354 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



were standing together on a rising ground which overlooked 
a tract of hills and undulating forest, presenting a variety of 
foliage rare in the monotony of Russian scenery, when the 
Czar, who had to an unusual extent the Russian passion for 
imitation of sacred places, and had built in his palace and 
in his hunting-grounds two copies of the Holy Sepulchre, 
exclaimed, ' What a site for a monastery ! what a beautiful 
place for a New Jerusalem ! ' 1 Nicon caught at the 
thought. He had himself already made a new Athos of 
his island in the Valdai Lake. ' Here,' he said, 'there 
' shall be indeed a New Jerusalem. The church of the 

* monastery shall be the church of the Holy Sepulchre ; the 

* river which runs at our feet shall be the Jordan ; the brook 

* shall be the Kedron ; the hill on which we stand shall be 

* the Mount of Olives, the wooded mount beyond shall be 

* Mount Tabor.' Neither Alexis nor Nicon, with all their 
passion for imitation, could produce the slightest resem- 
blance between the natural features of Muscovy and of 
Palestine. But Nicon did what he could for the building. 
His agents were still in the East collecting manuscripts for 
a correct version of the Liturgy, and he charged them to 
bring back from Jerusalem an exact model of the church of 
the Holy Sepulchre. The result was the church of the 
1 Resurrection ' (Voskresensky), or, as it is more commonly 
called, of 'the New Jerusalem,' which still remains a monu- 
ment of the friendship of Alexis and Nicon. Externally it 
has the aspect of an ordinary Russian cathedral, still further 
complicated by the addition of successive chapels built by, 
or in honour of, the various members of the Imperial family 
in after times, down to our own day. But internally it is so 
precisely of the same form and dimensions as the church at 
the actual Jerusalem, that, intricate as the arrangements of 
that church are, beyond probably any other in the world, a 
traveller who has seen the original can find his way without 
difficulty through every corridor, and stair, and corner of 

1 Bachmeister, 44 ; MouraviefF, 207 



LECT. XI. 



HIS RESIGNATION. 



355 



the copy ; and it possesses the further interest that, having 
been built before the recent alterations of the church in 
Palestine, it is in some respects (in five 1 particulars of con- 
siderable importance) more like the old church in which 
the crusaders worshipped than is that church itself. It was, 
amongst all the architectural works of Nicon's Patriarchate, 
that on which his heart was most set. Throughout it 
bears his impress. In the sanctuary behind the screen still 
remains an indication of his magnificent schemes for the 
Russian Church. A vast array of seats rises, tier above 
tier, surmounted by the five Patriarchal thrones of Con- 
stantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Moscow, 
which Nicon in his days of power designed as the scene of 
a future General Council. A picture represents him sur- 
rounded by his disciples, amongst others the secretary 
ShuskerinofT seated at his feet bending with eyeglasses over 
his manuscript, containing, as we may suppose, the annals 
of Russia, called, from his superintendence, the Chronicle 
of Nicon. 2 Still more characteristic is the square tower, 
the cell, or 4 skeet ' {ao-K^r-qpiov), which he built for himself 
beyond the fancied Kedron, in the midst of the pale misty 
birchwood that climbs the slope behind the convent. His 
large black hat, his enormous clouted shoes, his rough 
sheepskin, 3 bring before us his huge figure in the costume 
and manner of life which he adopted when he exchanged 
the Patriarchate for the hermitage, when he fished in the 
river and assisted at the drainage of the marshes like a 
common peasant, and worked like a common stone-mason 
in the erection of the convent church. It was what he had 
been of old in the monastic fortress by the Frozen Ocean ; 
it was what he kept before his mind even in his greatness of 

1 i. There are no walls of partition raised. 4. The chapels of the Sepulchre 

such as since the fire of 1812 have been and of the Golgotha are without altars, 

erected between the sects. 2. The dome 5. The irregular form of the rock by the 

is of larger proportions than that now Golgotha has not been smoothed away, 
existing, higher, and covered. 3. The 2 Levesque, iv. 75. 

entrance into the chapel of the Sepul- 3 Ibid, 

chre from the antechapel has not been 

A I 2 



356 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



state at Moscow, by inviting from time to time to his table 
one of the wild enthusiasts already described in mediaeval 
Russia, who sate by his side, amidst the splendour of the 
Imperial banquet, in a state of absolute nudity. 1 

But neither the ideal nor the practice of solitary asceti- 
cism could enable Nicon to forget that he had been, that he 
was still, except by his own rash abdication, the Patriarch of 
Russia. He refused by any act or word to acknowledge a 
successor in the see. He caused a special office 
to be sung in the convent, in which, day by day, 2 
were repeated the curses from the 109th Psalm. 1 1 have 
' not cursed the Czar,' was his answer to the commissioner 
who came from Moscow to complain (the eager denial will 
show the contrast of his position and that of Hildebrand), 
' I have not cursed the Czar, but I have cursed you, the 
1 nobles 3 of the Church ; if you have a mind to stay and 
1 hear it, I will have the same office sung over again in your 
* ears.' For eight years the struggle continued. At last a 
singular event brought matters to a crisis. Nicon in his 
solitude received an urgent entreaty from one of the few 
nobles who remained friendly to him that he would come 
unexpectedly to Moscow, on the festival of Peter the first 
Metropolitan, and invite the Czar to join him in the cathe- 
dral, according to his former custom, as if nothing had 
intervened. Meditating on this letter, yet not resolved, he 
retired for his three hours' rest 4 in his hermit's tower. At 
the top of the tower a stone recess in the wall is still shown, 
narrow and short, which Nicon used as his bed, and on 
which he must have found but scanty room to stretch out 
his gigantic limbs. It is a true Fakir's resting-place. On 
Nkons tnat stone bed 5 he was sleeping, and he dreamed 
dream. t h at h e was once more i n his own beloved cathe- 
dral, and one by one he saw rise from their graves the whole 



• Macarius, ii. 266. * Levesque, iv. 77. 
3 The noble referred to was Borborikina. Levesque, iv. 79. 

* Levesque, iv. 75. 1 Mouravieff, 224. 



LECT. XI. 



NICON'S RETIREMENT. 



357 



line of his predecessors in the Metropolitan see : Peter, 
whose wonder-working staff he had laid on the sacred 
picture ; Alexis, from the chapel hard by, the champion of 
Russia against the Tartars ; Philip, murdered by Ivan the 
Terrible ; Job, the blind old man who had vainly struggled 
against the false Demetrius ; Hermogenes, starved to death 
by the Polish invaders ; Philaret, grandfather of the Czar 
Alexis : one by one, at the call of the wonder-worker Jonah, 
they rose from the four corners, and from the array of tombs 
beside the painted walls, and took him by the hand, and 
raised him once more into his Patriarchal throne. He woke 
up and left his cramped couch. He returned by night to 
Moscow, on the eve of Peter's festival. At break of day he 
appeared publicly once more in the cathedral, grasped once 
more the staff of Peter, stood erect in the Patriarch's place, 
and sent to the Czar to announce his arrival, and to invite 
him to come to the church to receive his blessing, and to 
assist at the prayers. 

The Czar was taken by surprise. He sent to consult his 
nobles. To them it was a matter of life and death to pre- 
His final vent tne interview. And they did prevent it. The 
retirement. q z2X or d ere d him to return ; and Nicon, in the 
bitterness of his heart, obeyed the command and retired 
from the cathedral, bearing away with him the ancient staff, 
which at last (it is a significant action expressive of the 
meaning of the whole story) he surrendered to the Czar, 
and to no one but the Czar. Finally, feeling that 
a.d. 1667. k e cou \d out n0 longer, he consented to the 
election of a new Patriarch. 

The fall of Nicon was now inevitable. At the instigation 
of his enemies a Council of the Eastern Patriarchs was con- 
vened at Moscow ; and thus it came to pass that the most 
august assembly of divines which Russia has ever witnessed, 
met for the condemnation of the greatest man whom the 
Eastern hierarchy had produced in modern times. Its general 



i 



358 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



acts will be best noticed hereafter. I confine myself here to 
the incidents characteristic of the present story. 

The trial was in the hall of Nicon's own palace. A pic- 
ture of the Council of Nicaea, hung in the sacred corner of 
His con- the room, still indicates, and probably then indi- 

demnation. cated? ^ purpose for which the haU wag designed. 

Paisius of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch, the same 
who had eight years before seen Nicon in his highest pomp, 
were here in person. Nicaea, Iconium, Sinai, were 
A ' D ' 1 7 ' also represented ; Georgia, Servia, Wallachia, be- 
sides the most distinguished of the hierarchy of the Russian 
Church itself. In front of these, still communicating with 
them through an interpreter, 1 still claiming his rank as Pa- 
triarch, and refusing to sit as he could not seat himself on 
his Patriarchal chair, stood the exiled prelate. One last 
chance remained for him. Presiding in the Council, as 
Constantine had presided at Nicaea, was the Czar himself. 
Now, for the first time for eight years, they stood again face 
to face. Between Nicon and his accusers all the fierceness 
of long-pent indignation was let loose. But between him 
and the Czar there was hardly anything but an outpouring 
of tenderness and affection. Tears flowed from the Czar's 
eyes as he read the accusation ; and the sight of his ancient 
friend standing, habited as if for a capital sentence, so 
moved his heart, that, to the consternation of the nobles, he 
descended from his throne, walked up to the Patriarch, took 
him by the hand, and burst forth into a plaintive entreaty, 
1 Oh ! most holy father ! why hast thou put upon me such a 
* reproach, preparing thyself for the Council as if for death ? 
' Thinkest thou that I have forgotten all thy services to me 
1 and to my family during the plague, and our former friend- 
' ship ? ' Mutual remonstrances between the two friends led 
to recriminations between their attendants. 'That, O reli- 
' gious Czar, is a lie,' was the somewhat abrupt expression of 
one of Nicon's clerks, on hearing a false accusation brought 

1 Bachmeister, 86 ; Mouravieff, 227. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS DEGRADATION. 



359 



against his master. 1 In the general silence produced either 
by the force of Nicon's replies or by the awful presence of 
the friendly Czar, 2 when Alexis turned round to see 
a.d. 1667. ^ some 0 f the nobles had anything to urge, Nicon 
asked with his usual bitter irony : ' Why do you not bid 
1 them take up stones ? So they would soon put an end to 

* me ; but not with words, though they should spend nine 

* years more in collecting them.' They parted never to 
•meet again. 

Alexis could not bear to be present at his condemnation. 
The third and last meeting therefore of the Council was 
assembled in a small church, now destroyed, over the gates 
of one of the Kremlin convents. Nicon was degraded from 
his office to the rank of a simple monk, and banished for the 
rest of his life to do penance in a distant monastery. 

He maintained his proud sarcastic bearing to the end. 
' Why do you degrade me without the presence of the Czar, 
His degra- 1 m tn ^ s sma U church, and not in the cathedral 
dation. < where you once implored me to ascend the Patri- 
archal throne?' 'Take this,' he said, offering to the 
Bishops a large pearl from the front of his white metropoli- 
tan cowl, which they took off with their own hands from his 
head ; ' it will help to support you under your oppressions 

* in Turkey, but it will not last you long. Better stay at 
' home there than go wandering about the world as mendi- 

* cants.' It was in the depth of a Russian winter, and the 
Czar sent him by one of the kindlier courtiers a present of 
money and sable furs for the journey to the far north. The 
impenetrable prelate sternly replied : ' Take these back to 

* him who sent them ; these are not what Nicon wants.' The 
courtier entreated him not to affront the Czar by his refusal ; 
and also asked in the Czar's name for his forgiveness and 
blessing. 'He loved not blessing,' said Nicon, in allusion 
to the 109th Psalm, in which he had before cursed all his 
enemies except the Czar, ' and therefore it shall be far from 

1 Palmer's Orth. Communion, p. 63. 3 Levesque, iv. 78. 



3&> 



THE PATRIARCH NICON 



LECT. XI. 



* him.' To the nobles he shook off the dust of his feet ; and 

on one of them sweeping it up and saying (in allusion to the 

goods of the Church, which they now hoped to get) 
a d. 1667. t ^ at t ]^ s was j ust w jj at t k e y wan ted, he pointed to 

the comet, 1 then flaming in the sky, — the ' besom star,' as it 
is called in Russ, — and said, 'God's besom shall sweep you 
' all away.' To the people, who, in spite of their prejudice 
against his reform, flocked round him also for his blessing, he 
replied in a nobler and more Christian spirit, as Philip had 
done before, this one word, 'Pray.' 2 The sledge was at 
hand to carry him off, and he entered it with the episcopal 
staff and mantle which the Patriarchs, 3 for fear of the people, 
had not ventured to remove. A winter cloak was thrown 
over him by the pity of one of the more gentle of the hier- 
archy. 4 With a dry irony he repeated to himself: 'Ah, 
Nicon, Nicon ! do not lose your friends. Do not say all 
4 that may be true. If you would only have given a few 
' good dinners, and have dined with them in return, none of 

* these things would have befallen you.' Through the south 
gate of the Kremlin, to avoid the crowds collected on the 
north side in the expectation of seeing him pass, he was 
borne away, with the furious speed of Russian drivers, across 
the ancient bridge of the Mosqua, and rapidly out of sight 
of those proud towers of the Kremlin, 5 which had witnessed 
the striking vicissitudes of his glory and his fall. 

At evening, it is said, they halted in a house from which 
the occupants had been ejected. In the middle of the night, 
when Nicon and his attendants had been left to themselves 
in the piercing cold of their destitute condition, a trap-door 
in the floor of the room opened, an old woman came up, and 
asked which was the Patriarch Nicon. ' I am he,' said the 
fallen prelate. She fell at his feet, and solemnly assured him 
that she had seen in a dream the night before a very goodly 

1 This striking story, with much else, 2 Palmer, 64. 

I owe to the author of the Dissertations * Mouravieff, 232. 

(so often quoted) on the Orthodox Com- * Mouravieff, 243 ; Palmer 65. 

munion. 6 Palmer, 65. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS EXILE. 



361 



man saying to her : ' My servant Nicon is coming hither in 

* great cold and need of all things. Now, therefore, give him 

' what thou hast by thee for his needs.' 1 In this way 

A.D. 1667. , J . . . . . . 

— so runs the story, which is curious as showing 
the impression produced on the popular mind by Nicon's 
career — he was protected against the severity of the rest of 
the journey, till his arrival 2 at the monastery of Therapon- 
tofT, on the shores of the White Lake. 

Nine years passed away, and Nicon remained almost 
forgotten in his remote prison, when a baseless rumour rose 
Hisim- tnat ne was with the insurgent army of Stenza 
prisonment. R az j a on t h e Eastern frontier. 3 Alexis, covertly 
or openly, sent presents and entreaties for forgiveness. Ni- 
con, at first as stern as when he left Moscow, at last partially 
relented, in the hope of fulfilling the cherished wish of his 
heart, to die and be buried in his favourite monastery of the 
New Jerusalem, and of seeing once more his early and only 
friend. 4 But before any final reconciliation could be ac- 
complished, Alexis was struck with a mortal illness. On his 
death-bed he sent messengers once more to Nicon, conjur- 
ing him, even by all his former titles of Great Lord and 
Patriarch, to grant him full forgiveness. Verbally the for- 
Death of gi yeness was at l ast sent - ^ ut Alexis was already 
Alexis, a.d. passed away, 5 and when the tidings reached Nicon 

in his solitary cell, he groaned aloud and ex- 
claimed : ' The will of God be done ! What though he 
' never saw me to make our farewell peace here, we shall 

* meet and be judged together at the terrible coming of 
' Christ.' 6 

Once more, on the removal of Alexis, darkness closed in 
upon the unfortunate exile. New accusations were invented 
against him ; he was removed to a farther monastery on the 
same lake, and imprisoned with still closer severity. 



' Palmer, 65 ; Bachmeister, 109. 
3 Mouravieff, 232. 
* Ibid. 240. 



4 Palmer, 66 , Mouravieff, 244. 

* Palmer, 67 

* Mouravieff, 243. 



3^2 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



At the close of three years his deliverance was effected 
by the means which, now that his beloved master was gone, 
he would probably most have preferred for himself. The 
preceptor of the young Czar Theodore, Simeon of Polotzky, 
was a monk who had travelled in the West, and there, from 
a jumble of Latin theology and astrological divinations, con- 
ceived a wild scheme of creating four Patriarchal sees in the 
Russian Church after the manner of those ot the East, sur- 
mounted by one Papal throne, which he destined for the 
only man in Russia who was capable of filling it, the exiled 
but never-forgotten Nicon. He worked on the mind of his 
royal pupil in one direction. Another older friend was the 
Princess Tatiana, sister of the late Czar, who had always 
remained faithful to Nicon, and one of whose works of de- 
votion, an illuminated Gospel, is still shown in the treasury 
of the Convent of the New Jerusalem. To that beloved 
edifice — still in the unfinished state in which its founder 
had left it — she took her nephew, to visit the spot, and to 
receive from the monks a petition for the return of Nicon. 
The Czar laid it before the Patriarch Joachim, who for a 
time strongly resisted ; but hearing at last that Nicon was 
preparing for his latter end, his heart was touched and he 
consented. 

From this point the story cannot be better told than in 
the words of the Russian historian, whose narrative here, in 
Return of * ts s^P^ty an d P at hos, forms a remarkable con- 
Nicon, a.d. trast to the turgid Orientalism by which, to our 
tastes, the general style is often disfigured. The 
whole story is full of that peculiar river scenery of Russia 
with which we were made familiar in the earlier stages of its 
history. 

* On the very same day on which the gracious permission of 
the Czar and the Patriarch arrived at the monastery of S. Cyril, 
Nicon, while it was yet very early, from a secret presentiment, 
had prepared himself for the journey, and, to the astonishment 
pf everybody, ordered the religious who were in personal attend- 



LECT. XI. 



HIS RETURN. 



3^3 



ance upon himself to hold themselves in readiness. With diffi- 
culty they placed the old man, now worn out with sickness and 
infirmity, in a sledge, which took him by land to a barge 
a.d. 1681. on r j ver sh e k sna) which he descended to the Volga. 
Here he was met by brethren from the monastery of the Resurrec- 
tion, or New Jerusalem, who had been sent for that purpose. 
Nicon gave orders to drop down the Volga as far as the point 
where Yaroslaff [with its high bank crowned by monasteries] over- 
looks the river. Near one of these he put to shore, and received 
the communion of the sick, for he began to be exceedingly feeble. 
The Hegumen [or Prior] with all the brotherhood went out to 
meet him, accompanied by a former enemy of Nicon, the Archi- 
mandrite Sergius, the same that during his trial kept him under 
guard and covered him with reproaches, but had since been sent 
to this monastery in disgrace to perform penance. This Ser- 
gius, having fallen asleep in the refectory, at the very hour of the 
arrival of Nicon, saw in a dream the Patriarch appearing to him, 
and saying, " Brother Sergius, arise ; let us forgive and take 
leave of each other ! " when suddenly at that moment he was 
awakened and told that the Patriarch was actually approaching 
by the Volga, and that the brotherhood had already gone out 
to the bank to meet him. Sergius followed immediately, and, 
when he saw Nicon dying, he fell at his feet, and, shedding tears 
of repentance, asked and obtained his forgiveness. 

4 Death had already begun to come upon the Patriarch by 
the time that the barge was moving down the stream. The 
citizens of Yaroslavla, hearing of his arrival, crowded to the river, 
and, seeing the old man lying on his couch all but dead, threw 
themselves down before him with tears, kissing his hands and 
his garments, and begging his blessing ; some towed the barge 
along the shore, others threw themselves into the water to assist 
them, and thus they drew it in and moored it against the monas- 
tery of the All-merciful Saviour. 

'The sufferer was already so exhausted that he could not 
speak, but only gave his hand to them all. The Czar's secretary 
ordered them to tow the barge to the other side of the river to 
avoid the crowds of the people. Nicon was on the point of death ; 
suddenly he turned and looked about as if some one had come 
to call him, and then arranged his hair, beard, and dress for 
himself, as if in preparation for his last and longest journey. 
His confessor, together with all the brethren standing round, 
read the commendatory prayers for the dying ; and the Patri- 



3^4 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XI. 



arch, stretching himself out to his full length on the couch, and 
laying his arms crosswise upon his breast, gave one sigh, and 
a.d. 1681. departed from this world in peace. In the meantime 
His death, the pious Czar Theodore, not knowing that he was 
dead, had sent his own carriage to meet him with a number of 
horses. When he was informed of it he shed tears, and asked 
what Nicon had desired respecting his last will. And when he 
learned that the departed prelate had chosen him as his godson 
to be his executor, and had confided everything to him, the 
good-hearted Czar replied, with emotion : " If it be so, and the 
Most Holy Patriarch Nicon has reposed all his confidence in 
me, the will of the Lord be done. I will not forget him." He 
gave orders for conveying the body to the New Jerusalem.' 1 

A picture in the convent represents the scene. Down 
from the hill where Nicon and Alexis had stood when the 
name of ' the New Jerusalem ' was first suggested, 
the long procession descends towards the un- 
finished buildings of the monastery. The Czar walks im- 
mediately before the gigantic corpse, which, on its un- 
covered bier, is visible to the whole attendant crowd. So 
was Nicon borne to his last resting-place. It was in the 
spot which he had always designed for himself, in the 
4 Chapel of Melchizedek,' at the foot of ' Golgotha,' close by 
the spot where, in the actual church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
lie the remains of Godfrey of Bouillon. Over the tomb 
were suspended, and still remain, the heavy chains which he 
wore round his body in the rude hermitage. At his head 
is the small waxen picture which he carried about with him 
in all his wanderings. Amidst the copies of the sacred 
localities which surround the grave, it yet receives from the 
Russian pilgrims a share of devout enthusiasm, and awakes 
in the Western traveller an interest the more sincere, as 
being, amidst a crowd of artificial imitations, the only 
genuine reality. He rests, after his long vicissitudes, in the 
place which he had appointed for himself. He rests, all 
but canonised, in spite of his many faults, and in spite of 

' Mouravieff, 246-249. 



LECT. XI. 



HIS END. 



3^5 



his solemn condemnation and degradation by the nearest 
approach to a General Council which the Eastern Church 
has witnessed since the Second Council of Nicaea. He 
rests, far enough removed from the ideal of a saintly charac- 
ter, but yet having left behind him to his own Church the 
example, which it still so much needs, of a resolute, active, 
onward leader ; to the world at large, the example, never 
without a touching lesson, of a rough reformer, recognised 
and honoured when honour and recognition are too late. 
He closes the whole epoch of Russian history of which he 
was the central figure. His life, as has been strikingly ob- 
served, extends itself over the whole period of the Russian 
Patriarchate, which was in fact the period of transition from 
the old Russia to the new ; and already there was born to 
the Imperial house that still greater Reformer, who in the 
next generation was to carry out more than all that Nicon 
in his highest dreams could have anticipated, if not for the 
Christianisation, at least for the civilisation, of the clergy 
and people of Russia. To describe the career of that Im- 
perial Reformer, more fortunate than his ecclesiastical pre- 
decessor, to imagine what would have been the consequence 
had Peter found a Nicon, or had Nicon found a Peter, 
either as a rival or as an ally, will be our concluding task 



THE PATRIARCH NICON. 



LECT. XL 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1613. MICHAEL ROMANOFF. 

161 9. P hilar et, Patriarch. 

1633. Joasaph Patriarch. 

1642. Joseph, Patriarch. 

1645. ALEXIS. 

1652. Nicon, Patriarch. 

1654. Plague. Building of the New Jerusalem. 

1658. Retirement of Nicon. 

1667. Deposition of Nicon. 

Joasaph II, Patriarch. 

1673. Pitirim, Patriarch. 

1674. Joachim, Patriarch. 
1676. THEODORE II. 
168 1. Death of Nicon. 



lect. xii. PETER THE GREAT : HIS IMPORTANCE. 367 



LECTURE XII. 

PETER THE GREAT AND THE MODERN CHURCH OF RUSSIA. 



It is needless to specify the works on the Life of Peter the 
Great. A catalogue of the chief of them will be found in the 
preface to the compendious Life of Peter the Great in the 
Family Library. The more special authorities for his ecclesias- 
tical history are mentioned in the notes. 

I must, however, particularly notice the Russian documents 
translated in 4 The Present State and Regulations of the Church 
of Russia,' by Henry Consett, chaplain at the British Factory, 
1727. 



If the history of the first Russian reformer suffers from our 
ignorance, the same cannot be said of the second. If no 
Peter the one nas heard of Nicon, every one has heard of 
Great. Peter. Let us first briefly recall his general cha- 
racter and career, and then transplant him into the special 
field of history, that of the Eastern Church, with which we 
are too little accustomed to associate his name. 

I. Much as has been said and written of Peter the 
Great, yet there is a singularity in his position which always 
provokes afresh the curiosity of mankind. The second 
founder of the youngest born of European empires, he 
gathers round himself all the romantic interest of a legen- 
dary hero, an Alfred or a Charlemagne ; yet he is known to 
us with all the exactness and fullness of recent knowledge. 



3 68 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



No prince of modern Europe is so familiar to almost every 
country in it, as Peter of Russia. He was, as no 

His connec- * . ' 

Euro w e h ° P rlnce nas Deen > a guest of each. Holland, 
urope ' Sweden, Poland, Turkey, Prussia, Austria, Italy, 
knew him well by sight or hearing as he passed to and fro 
with on his marvellous journeys. He is ours, too, in a 
England, spe cial sense. All London was alive with expec- 
tation and excitement when his arrival in England was 
known. Every one was full of stories of the artifices by 
which the strange barbarian sought to evade the eagerness 
of our national curiosity to see the prodigy. He comes 
directly across the path of English ecclesiastical history in 
his long conversations with Bishop Burnet. He comes for 
a moment even across the path of our own academical 
with Oxford ^ stor y- 4 Last week,' says Narcissus Luttrell, 1 'the 
' ' Czar of Muscovy went privately to Oxford ; but 
' being soon discovered, he immediately came back to 
* London without viewing those curiosities he intended.' 
An honorary degree was conferred upon him. 

Strongly, however, as we are riveted by this strange ap- 
parition in foreign lands, it is only in his own country that 
he stands before us in his full proportions. Look at him as 
he presents himself in the gallery of the portraits of the 
Czars. From Ivan the Terrible each follows each in gro- 
tesque barbaric costume, half Venetian, half Tartar, till 
suddenly, without the slightest preparation, Peter breaks in 
amongst them, in the full uniform of the European soldier. 
The ancient Czars vanish to appear no more, and Peter 
remains with us, occupying henceforward the whole horizon. 
His appear- Countenance, and stature, and manner, and pur- 
ance. su i ts are absolutely kept alive in our sight. We 
see the upturned look, the long black hair falling back from 
his fine forehead, the fierce eyes glancing from beneath the 
overhanging brows, the mouth clothed with indomitable 

1 Diary, iv. 368. This, I believe, is general conduct in England, see Macau* 
the only notice of his visit. For his lay's Hist, of England, vol. v. 



LECT. XII. 



HIS CHARACTER. 



369 



power. We gaze at his gigantic height, his wild rapid 
movements, the convulsive twitches of his face and hands, 
the tremendous walking-staff, 1 almost a crowbar of iron, 
which he swings to and fro as he walks, the huge Danish 
wolf-dog and its two little companions which run behind 
him. We are with him in his Dutch house amidst the 
rough pieces of wood which he has collected as curiosities, 
the tools, the lathe, the articles of wood and ivory that he 
has turned. No dead man so lives again in outward form 
before us as Peter in St. Petersburg. But not in outward 
form only. That city represents to us his whole Herculean 
course, more actually Hercules-like than any of modern 
times, and proudly set forth in the famous statue erected by 
Catharine II. In front of the Isaak church, built 
is statue. tQ commemorate his birthday, in the midst of the 
great capital, which he called forth out of nothing, rises the 
huge granite block from Finland, up which he urges his 
horse, trampling the serpent of conspiracy under his feet, 
rearing over the edge of the precipice of the stupendous 
difficulty which he had surmounted, his hand stretched out 
towards the wide stream of the Neva, to which he looked 
for the regeneration of his country. Truly it is no exagge- 
ration of what he attempted and achieved. Think of what 
Russia was as already described Doubtless the two Ivans 
had done something ; doubtless, too, his father Alexis and 
the Patriarch Nicon had turned their thoughts southward 
and westward. But, taken as a whole, it was, with many 
noble elements, a wild Oriental people, ruled by a court 
wrapped round and round in Oriental ceremonial. What 
must the man have been, who, born and bred in this atmo- 
sphere, conceived, and by one tremendous wrench, almost 
by his own manual labour and his own sole gigantic strength, 
executed the prodigious idea of dragging the nation, against 
its will, into the light of Europe, and erecting a new capital 

1 The only relic of the old costume of the Czars. See Macarius, i. 381. 
B B 



370 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XIL 



and a new empire amongst the cities and the kingdoms of 
the world ! St. Petersburg is indeed his most en- 

Foundation . . . . , . 

of St. during monument. A spot up to that time without 
Petersburg. ^ s i n gi e association, selected instead of the holy 
city to which even now every Russian turns as to his 
mother ; a site which, but a few years before, had belonged 
to his most inveterate enemies ; won from morass and 
forest, with difficulty defended, and perhaps even yet 
doomed to fall 1 before the inundations of its own river ; 
and now, though still Asiatic beyond any capital of the 
West, yet in grandeur and magnificence, in the total sub- 
jugation of nature to art, entirely European. And the 
change from Moscow to St. Petersburg is but a symbol of 
the revolution effected in the whole Empire by the power of 
Peter. For better, for worse, he created army, navy, law, 
dress, amusements, alphabet, some in part, some altogether, 
anew. Much that was superficial, much that was false, 
much that broke out under his successors into frightful cor- 
ruption and depravity, at least of the higher classes, came 
in with the Western changes. But whatever hopes for the 
world or the Church are bound up with the civilisation of 
the West, did penetrate into Russia through Peter and 
through no one else. 

So unlike the rest of his dynasty— Philaret, the founder 
of the house, a reverend ecclesiastic ; Michael, Alexis, Theo- 
dore, yielding and gentle princes — suddenly ap- 

His schemes , . ° , . . , . , . 

for civilising pears this man, bursting with brutal passions, as if 
all the extravagances of the family had been pent 
up to break forth in him. And yet in this savage, drunken 
and licentious, the victim of ungovernable fury, arose this 
burning desire for civilisation. His very violence was turned 
to promote his end. Literally, not metaphorically, by blows, 
by kicks, by cuffs, he goaded his unwilling people forward. 2 



1 ' Up to this point the floods have 
come,' said an attendant, showing the 
mark on a tree by the river bank. ' Give 



me a hatchet,' said the angry Czar, and 
cut down the tree at a blow. 

2 Many of the expressions here used 



LECT. XII. 



HIS REFORMS. 



371 



Russia, as the Russian poet sings, was the hard anvil, and 
Peter was its terrible hammer. But the strangest, the most 
affecting, part of his career is this, that what he required 
from others he laboured to acquire for himself. In the soli- 
tude of barbarism in which he was placed, he knew that by 
his own mind, by his own hands, if at all, his country was to 
be changed. As filthy in his habits as any Russian serf of 
the present day, to whom every European comfort is dis- 
tasteful, he yet was able to endure the splendour of Paris 
and London, and, what is more astonishing, the cleanliness 
of Holland. Possessing in a remarkable degree the turn for 
mechanical pursuits, of which trophies are preserved in every 
part of his dominions, he yet, with a largeness of mind very 
rarely found in company with such pursuits (contrast the 
unfortunate Louis XVI.), used them all for reconstructing 
the fabric of his Empire. 'He is mechanically turned,' was 
Bishop Burnet's observation of him, ' and seems to be de- 
' signed by nature rather for a ship carpenter than a great 
' prince.' But the Bishop was mistaken \ and the remarkable 
point of Peter's career is that he was both. 

One instance may suffice to remind us of the difficulties 
which he had to overcome alike in himself and in his Empire. 

Inheriting - apparently it was all that he did inherit from 
his family— the unhappy tendency to cataleptic fits, he was 
His naval specially subject to them from his earliest years 
efforts. whenever he came in sight of water, in consequence 
of a fright which he had had when, at the age of five, he 
was suddenly wakened from sleep by the sound of a cascade 
in the river Yaousa. 1 In spite of this, in spite of all other 
obstacles presented by the inland character of his enormous 
Empire, he determined to render himself a sailor and his 
country a maritime power. He overcame his own infirmity 
by incessant efforts, first on the little stream of the Mosqua, 

I owe to conversation with intelligent this hydrophobia, see Strahlenberg's 
Russians. Description of Russia, 273, 274. 

' Stahlin, § 84. For the details of 

B B 2 



372 



PETER THE GREAT. 



lect. xn. 



then on the wide lake of Pereslav, then by serving as a ship- 
boy on board a Dutch vessel ; till finally the water which had 
been his early terror became his natural element. The new 
capital on the Neva was to be built without bridges, 1 that he 
and his people might be always on its waters, passing and 
repassing. The boat 2 which he first built remains still, 
'The Little Grandsire,' to which once a year the Russian 
navy does homage. ' My ships,' he said, 'shall make ports 

* for themselves.' 3 His own life is filled with anecdotes of 
hairbreadth escapes by water. In the storm in the Gulf of 
Finland, he reassured the terrified sailors : ' Never fear ! 
1 Who ever heard of a Czar being lost 4 at sea ? ' On another 
like occasion he rebuked the ambassador who asked what 
account could be rendered to his master if he were ship- 
wrecked : ' Make yourself easy ; if we go down we shall all 

* go down together, and there will be no one to answer for 
' your Excellency.' His last illness was fatally aggravated by 
the generous rashness with which, on a raw winter day, he 
dashed into the water to save a distressed crew. 

I dwell on these general traits of Peter's character and 
career, partly because we cannot understand his ecclesiastical 
changes without taking into account the aspect of the whole 
man, partly because there is something in the exhibition of 
such perseverance and resolution, which is in itself a part of 
that higher history of the Church of which we ought never 
His pas- t0 l° se sight. I make no apologies for what have 
sions been only too truly called his Samoyedic excesses. 
But in considering this gross licentiousness we must re- 
member the strong temptations of his early education ; and 
in considering his brutal violence of temper, action, and 
language, the same excuses which have been offered for the 
violence of other reformers, of higher religious pretensions, 
anddifficui- must a lso be in some degree accepted for Peter, 
ties. i i kn OW well my faults, my bursts of passion, and 



1 Stahlin, § 84. 
" Stahlin, § 84. 



- Its history is given in a tract translated by Consett, 206. 

4 Ibid. § no. 



lect. xii. HIS RELATIONS TO THE CHURCH. 373 



' therefore it is that I wish to have those near me like my 
* Catharine, who will warn and correct me. 1 I can reform 
' my people ; I cannot reform myself.' So he exclaimed in 
the penitent mood which followed one of his frenzies of 
lawless rage. There are many who would not have felt, 
much less expressed, the thought. Drinking, the fatal vice 
which, as we have seen, Vladimir I. had declared to be the 
indispensable privilege of a Russian prince, Peter did, it is 
said, by the effort of his later years entirely abandon. A 
wild sense of justice and truth ran through even his most 
grotesque extravagances. 

II. But the question still remains, what was 

His connec- m i 

tion with the the true relation of the Eastern Church to this 

Church. j . -> 

extraordinary man ? 
It is striking to reflect that not only at the close of his 
career, when in the fulsome style of Oriental eulogy he is 
celebrated as the Japheth, Samson, Moses, David, Solomon, 
of Russia, 2 but in his earliest years, the Russian Church 
seems to have claimed him as her own ; and the first recol- 
lections of his dangers and deliverances were associated with 
His escape the chief sanctuary of his country. The Troitza 
Troifza Con- Monastery, which has twice before figured as 
vent - turning the fate of Russia, was the refuge of Peter, 
when still a boy of twelve years old, with his mother Natalia, 
from the fury of the Strelitzes. She was permitted to conceal 
herself, not only within the precincts of the convent, not 
only within the walls of the principal church, but behind the 
sacred screen, beside the altar itself, where, by the rules of 
the Eastern Church, no woman's foot is allowed to enter. 
That altar (still remaining on the same spot) stood between 
the past and the future destinies of Russia. On one side of 
it crouched the mother and her son ; on the other the fierce 
soldiers were waving their swords over the head of the Im- 
perial child. ' Comrade, not before the altar ! ' exclaimed 

1 Stahlin, § 83. 

* Oration of Theophanes ; Consett's State of Russia, pp. 280-282. 



374 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



the more pious or the more merciful 1 of the two assassins. 
At that moment a troop of faithful cavalry galloped into the 
courtyard, and Peter was saved. In the seclusion of that 
same military convent, it is said, he first learned his taste for 
soldiering. The tower is still shown where he shot the ducks 
in the neighbouring stream. The ivory ball which he turned, 
to employ the vacant hours of his retirement, still hangs in 
the refectory. 

Many, no doubt, and rude were the shocks sustained, 
both by Peter's orthodoxy and by the Church's loyalty ; but 
His relations neither entirely failed. As we read the account of 
formsof nis contact with the different forms of European 
religion. religion, we seem to be reading again the story of 
his ancestor Vladimir. There was the same inquiry on his 
side ; the same solicitations on the other side. Everywhere 
on his journeys through Europe he did for himself what 
Vladimir had done by his envoys; heard the doctrines and 
attended the worship of the countries through which he 
passed. He learned the condition of our own Church in 
his walks over London with Bishop Burnet, and his dinner 
at Lambeth with Archbishop Tenison. He witnessed an 
ordination, and expressed his approval of the service. He 
received, like his descendants, a Quaker deputation, and 
attended a Quaker meeting. He listened with profound 
attention to a Lutheran sermon 2 at Dantzic. He dashed in 
pieces the drinking-cup of Luther at Wittemberg in vexation 
at not being allowed to carry away the memorial ; and ob- 
served that his monument 3 in the church was not too splen- 
did for so great a man. He ordered Dutch translations of 
the Bible, and loaded, it is said, two vessels with works of 
Dutch theology to enlighten his Russian subjects. A mes- 

1 It is said that the recollection of him ever again to appear in his presence 

that moment was the cause of his con- (Stahlin, § 26), as n jt daring to trust 

vulsions (Stahlin, § 32), and that twenty himself to look at the man who had once 

years afterwards he recognised this so filled him with terror, 
soldier, though disguised in a seaman's 1 See the story in Stahlin, §§ 12, 80. 

dress, and started back with an instinct 3 Stahlin, §41 ; see also Life of Peter, 

of horror. He forgave him, but forbade p. 273. 



LECT. XII. 



HIS RELIGION. . 375 



senger was despatched to Rome to learn the state of religion 
in the Latin Church. He stood in motionless admiration 
before the tomb of Cardinal Richelieu. And, on the other 
hand, he was, like Vladimir, the mark for all the proselytisers 
and ecclesiastical agitators of the West. The Pope was in 
high expectation 1 of his arrival to effect a union between 
the Greek and Latin Churches. The Gallican Church re- 
presented its claims through a memorial of the doctors of 
the Sorbonne. The Scottish Episcopalians 2 and Anglican 
Nonjurors tried to secure through him an alliance of 
the Eastern Church, as a prop to their forlorn condition. 
Even his unhappy son Alexis became the subject of constant 
rumours from expectants on this side and that. ' Foreign 
4 letters advise from Vienna that the Pope was in great 
' hopes the hereditary Prince of Muscovy may be persuaded 
4 to turn Papist.' 3 (June, 1710.) 'Letters from Dresden 
4 say that the hereditary Prince of Muscovy hath lately re- 
4 ceived communion there in a Lutheran church.' 4 (Oct. 
1710.) 

What Peter might have been, had he lived earlier or 
later, it is useless to guess. But, in fact, he still remained 
His adher- at heart a Prince of the Orthodox Church. In this 
Eastern 116 respect Burnet's observation was correct, at least as 
Church. regarded matters of faith. 4 He was desirous to 
* understand our doctrine, but he did not seem disposed to 
4 mend matters in Muscovy.' He observed the chief Eastern 
fasts. 5 The blade of the sword which he wore at Pultowa 
is inscribed with a prayer, 6 and has carved upon it the figure 
of S. George. In his battles he carried about always one of 
the sacred pictures from the Trinity Convent. He conse- 
crated his new capital by transferring thither the remains of 
the sainted Prince, Alexander of the Neva, who had illus- 
trated that river by his exploits centuries before its great 

1 St. Simon's Memoirs, vol. xv. * Ibid. 648. 

a Lathbury, History of the Non- s Stahlin, § 109. 

jurors, ch. viii. * It is .preserved in the museum at 

* Luttrell's Diary, vi. 591. Festh. 



37^ 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



destinies were unfolded. His motto in his wars was, ' For 
the Faith and the Faithful.' 1 He had heard much of free- 
thinkers at Amsterdam, but he treated their doings as mere 
impostures; and in the true spirit of a Russian believer added: 

* They despise the Fathers of the Councils, but the least of 

* those Fathers was better and wiser than they.' 2 

We see signs also of more than a mere ceremonial re- 
ligion. It was said that he knew the Epistles of S. Paul by 
heart. 3 His journal contains many grateful acknowledg- 
ments of the good Providence which so often had preserved 
him, and instructed him even by misfortunes. 4 He strictly 
prohibited talking in church, and working on Sunday, as 
marks of irreverence. * He who forgets God,' he said, 

* works to no purpose.' 5 In the small wooden house where 
he lived to watch the erection of his capital, one of the three 
rooms was marked out for his devotions, and now, fitted up 
as a small chapel, and daily crowded with worshippers, is a 
monument at once of his own sincere faith, and of the reli- 
gious associations with which his mere name is connected by 
the people. At Saardam, in like manner, a small closet in 
the loft of his wooden cabin answered the same purpose ; 
and it is a touching incident in his life, that when he re- 
visited Amsterdam after an interval of twenty years, during 
which he had carried out almost all the great designs then 
still in the future, he was deeply affected on entering the 
cottage at Saardam, and climbing up into the loft 6 remained 
there alone a full half-hour, doubtless in devotion as before. 7 
His strong common sense and his genuine love of truth 
showed themselves, not in defiance of his religious feelings, 
but in unison with them. * Ora et labora ' was the quotation 
with which he wound up his address to his senators. 8 And 



1 Gabriel. (Consett's State of Rus- 
sia, 395.) 

2 Stahlin, § 54. 

* Theophanes. (Cortsett, 325.) 

* Journal de Pierre le Grand, p. 30 ; 
Narva (239), Pultowa (270), Vibourg 



(295), Prutb (377), Pecklin (438), Revel 
(481), Petersburg (491). 

6 Stahlin, § 79. 

8 The loft is now blocked up. 

7 Life of Peter, 24a 

8 Ibid. 268. 



LECT. XII. 



HIS RELIGION. 



377 



when in a dangerous illness his life was despaired of, and he 
was asked, according to an ancient usage in such cases, to 
propitiate the Divine mercy by the pardon of criminals con- 
demned to death, who would then pray for his recovery, 
he heard the charges against them, and then, in what was 
thought to be his death-agony, replied: 'Do you think that 

* by arresting the course of justice I shall be doing a good 
' action, for which my life will be prolonged ? or that God 
4 will listen to the prayers of wretches who have forgotten 
4 Him? Carry out the sentence; and, if anything will pro- 

* cure from Heaven the gift of my health and life, I trust 
4 that it will be this act of justice.' 1 

His actual deathbed, as described by his two chief eccle- 
siastical friends, Theophanes 2 Procopovitch archbishop of 
His death- Plescow, and Gabriel archimandrite of the Trinity 
bed - Convent, is a curious summary of the conflict of 
the religious experiences of his life. One of the clergy, 
apparently Theophanes himself, 

4 made mention of the death of Christ and of the Divine blessings 
procured by it, and admonished the Emperor that now the time 
was come for him to think of nothing else ; that he should for 
his own support meditate on that which he had frequently incul- 
cated to others. 3 On this he sprang up and endeavoured to 
raise himself : and being raised a little by his attendants, with 
eyes and hands lifted as high as he could, though faltering in his 
speech, he broke out into these words : " This it is which at 
length can quench my thirst ; this alone which can refresh me." 
Just before the admonition he had moistened his mouth with 
julep (as he was obliged to do very often), and by way of allu- 
sion he uttered these words, and again and again repeated them. 
The Monitor further exhorting him that he should, without any 



1 Stahlin, § 2. A similar trait is 
given in Hermann's Geschichte, iv. 85. 

2 The two statements in the funeral 
orations of Theophanes and Gabriel are 
given in Consett's Regulations, 261, 360. 
They contain, no doubt, much of mere 
eulogy, but still they represent the con- 
temporary feeling about the dying 
Emperor. 



3 This appears to be said partly in 
allusion to Peter's habit of dwelling, in 
common discourse (as it would seem), 
on the Lutheran doctrine of justification. 
' He many times copiously and learnedly 
discussed the question concerning the 
justification of a sinner through Christ 
gratis.' — Consett., 260. 



378 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XU. 



diffidence, confide in the mercy of God, that he should believe 
his sins to be forgiven through the merits of Christ, and that the 
grace of eternal life was near at hand, to this he redoubled his 
reply, " I believe and I trust." And when the Monitor exhorted 
him to a prayer of faith, and produced those words which they 
recite who with us come to the Lord's Supper, " I believe, Lord, 
now, and confess that Thou art the Son of the living God, who 
earnest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief," he 
added, " I believe, 1 Lord, and confess ; I believe, Lord, help 
Thou mine unbelief." Shortly after he seemed to be sinking. 
Crowds of officers and people entered the room, and with tears 
and howlings kissed his hand. He lay awhile speechless, 
saluting everyone with his looks ; then with great difficulty said, 
" Hereafter." Whether by this word he would have a vacant 
space to himself, free from molestation (for his little apartment 
was thronged with people), or he spoke of the time after death, 
is doubtful. So all retired. He continued fifteen hours after- 
wards in great agony, beating his side with his right hand (his 
left was palsied) ; yet whenever the Monitor spoke to him con- 
cerning the vanity of the world, or concerning heaven, or con- 
cerning the death of Christ, he would make effort to raise him- 
self up, to sign the cross with his hand, or to lift it to heaven. 
. . . He tried also to moderate his groans into accents of praise, 
and to cheer up his countenance, and would have embraced his 
Monitor. Finally, he received the Sacrament a second time 
from Gabriel, and soon after expired.' 

This was the general position of Peter towards the 
ancient Eastern religion, in which he had been born and 
bred. Something is due to a form of the Christian faith 
which kept its hold on such a wild ungovernable man in 
such an age. To have traversed so many foreign lands, 
and watched so many foreign faiths, and yet still to have 
retained his own traditionary belief, may be fairly ascribed 
to the strength inherent in that belief. And it must have 
been a happy circumstance, that, owing to the ancient 



1 It is characteristic both of Peter 
and of his people, perplexed between 
his religion and his innovations, that the 
popular tradition of his last words is 



this expression slightly altered. 1 My 
God, I am dving ! help Thou mine un- 
belief.' 



LECT. XII. 



HIS REFORMS. 



379 



Eastern recognition of something like the principles of 
toleration, 1 Peter approached them from a point of view 
unlike that which was familiar to the other contemporary- 
sovereigns. To Louis XIV. those principles were odious, 
and to Frederick II. welcome, because to both of those 
princes they seemed to be irreligious. But to Peter they 
were little more than legitimate conclusions from the tra- 
ditions of his own Church. 

III. Nevertheless, though he maintained his ground as 
a faithful son of the Orthodox Church generally, the most 
instructive portion of his ecclesiastical career is the re- 
markable contest which, like Nicon, he maintained with 
one section of it, and which led to the results now to be 
described. 

The year 1700, the first year of the eighteenth century, 
which was marked by his adoption of the European calen- 
His reforms ^ ar ' ma y a ^ so ^ e called the year of the Russian 
Reformation, the boundary between old and new 
Russia, as in civil, so in ecclesiastical matters also. The 
substitution of St. Petersburg for Moscow was the sign that 
in both these spheres he had set his face, not Eastward, but 
Westward. As the ancient Pagan associations of Rome 
drove the first Christian Emperor of the West to Constanti- 
nople, 2 so the ancient Oriental associations of Moscow drove 
the first Reforming Emperor of the East to the Baltic. It 
is true that the reformation set on foot by Peter, like that 
set on foot by Nicon, was strictly in accordance with the 
national spirit. It was a revolution not of doctrines and 
ideas, but of customs, institutions, habits. But in this 
respect it went deeper than the attempts of Nicon, con- 
ducted as it was by a stronger hand, under more favourable 
auspices, and therefore with far more success. ' We should 
' be guilty,' he said, 'of ingratitude to the Most High, if, 
' after having reformed by His gracious assistance the civil 
' and military order, we were to neglect the spiritual ; and 

1 See Lecture I. p. 33. 2 See Lecture VI. 



38o 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



* if the Impartial Judge should require of us an account of 
4 the vast trust which He hath reposed in us, we should not 

* be able to give an answer.' 1 Increase of schools, restric- 
tions on the growth of monasteries, and regulations re- 
specting the monastic property, were amongst the chief 
practical measures by which the change was carried out. 

, ,. . The main constitutional alteration was that which 

Abolition . . .... rn /»-r-.' 

of the Pa- consisted in the abolition of the office of Patn- 
narc a e. arc ^2 an( j ^he substitution of a Synod consisting 
of prelates, presided over by the Emperor or his secretary. 
We need not go through the steps by which this was carried 
out, the long interval by which he accustomed the people to 
see the chair vacant, and the savage buffoonery with which 
he afterwards held up the office to ridicule. But it is im- 
portant to observe that here, as in the story of Nicon, we 
must avoid introducing Western ideas of the collision of 
Church and State into a measure which can only be pro- 
perly understood from the Oriental point of view. The 
power of the Czar, or Emperor, as he was now called, was 
hardly altered by the change. Peter was as much or as 
little the head of the Church as his predecessors had been 
before him. 3 He had, it is true, removed out of his path- 
way the possibility of a powerful rival in the State, and in 
a moment of passion, when asked to restore the office, he 
exclaimed, as is well known, * I am your Patriarch,' and 
then, throwing down his hunting-knife on the table, ' There 
is your Patriarch.' But these were expressions which might 
have been used by Vladimir or Ivan, and the office was 
abolished in fact, not so much because he feared the eccle- 
siastical power, as because he was enraged by the retrograde 
obstinacy of Adrian, the last Patriarch, because he desired 
to sweep away the world of barbaric ceremonial with which 
the Patriarchal throne was surrounded, and because he 



1 Preface to Spiritual Regulations, * See the Spiritual Regulations, 

Consett, 2. part i. (Consett's Present Stato of the 

9 Stahlin, § 87. Russian Church.) 



LECT. XII. 



HIS REFORMS. 



381 



wished to carry out, here as elsewhere, the principle of 
substituting colleges or bodies of men for the rule of 
individuals. 1 The institution which thus perished was 
hardly more than a century old, and its destruction was 
planned and approved not only by Peter himself, but by his 
two powerful ecclesiastical supporters, Theophanes arch- 
bishop of Plescow, and Demetrius of RostofT, and sanctioned 
by the whole body of Eastern Patriarchs. Before the final 
abolition, the question of its continuance was long kept 
open. Stephen Yavorsky, the leader of the more conser- 
vative party in the clergy, was appointed its guardian ; and 
on Stephen proposing to the Emperor that the Patriarchal 
chair should either be removed from the cathedral at 
Moscow or else receive an occupant, he replied : 'This 
* chair is not for Stephen to sit in, or for Peter to break.' 2 

But there was a series of reforms to Eastern feelings 
more irritating than the suspension or destruction of the 
Patriarchate. There was a party in the Russian Church 
which had been exasperated to the verge of endurance by 
the innovations of the Patriarch Nicon, and it was this same 
party which was now exasperated beyond endurance by the 
innovations of Peter. What Nicon had begun by intro- 
ducing new customs from the South, Peter, it seemed, was 
about to finish by introducing new customs from the West. 
Even more remarkable than the direct parallels to the 
movement of the European Reformation are the similarity 
and the dissimilarity of the indirect results produced by 
Luther and Henry VIII. in the West, and by Nicon and 
Peter in the East. We are sometimes accustomed to think 
of the ancient Eastern Church, and of the Russian Church, 
as free from the Western evils of division and dissent. This 
is not the case. We have already seen that there are out- 
side the Eastern Orthodox Church vast schismatical com- 



1 Spiritual Regulations, Consett, 'Dissertations on the Orthodox Com- 
13-16. munion.* 
a This I owe to the author of the 



3 82 



PETER THE GREAT. lect. xii. 



munities exactly analogous to those in the West, but differ- 
ing in this most characteristic respect, that, whereas our 
Reformation rent away sects and nations because the es- 
tablished Churches of Europe would not change enough, 
the Eastern sects have arisen because the established 
Churches of Asia have changed too much. Such to a con- 
siderable extent are the Chaldeans, Syrians, and Copts, in 
relation to the Church of Constantinople ; to them the 
Councils of Chalcedon and of Ephesus respectively present 
the stumbling-blocks which Protestants find in the Council 
of Trent But such in the most remarkable degree are 
The Ras- ' tne Separatists ' — ' the Rascolniks,' as they are 
colniks. called— of the Church of Russia. 1 Under that 
form indeed are included many wild sects which probably 
date much farther back than the seventeenth century, relics 
of ancient heathenism in the unconverted aboriginal tribes, 
or of the Gnostic and Manichsean tendencies of the East, 
or of the secret Judaising conspiracy which was repressed 
by Ivan III. But these, however curious in themselves, 
have no special bearing on the national history of the 
Russian Church, nor do they constitute the importance of 
the Separatist body. The real force, the permanent interest, 
of the Rascolniks lies in the eight millions of souls who call 
The Star- themselves Starovers ; that is, ' the Old Believers.' 
overs. They claim to be the one true Orthodox Church 
of Russia. The ancient wandering state of the Russian 
peasants is to them the mark of true Christianity. Pass- 
ports are the marks of the Beast. 2 Huge bonfires are lit to 
burn any that they can lay hold of. They are Dissenters, 
but on the most conservative principles which it is possible 
to conceive. They are Protestants, but against all reform. 
They are Nonjurors and Puritans both in one. They use 



1 My information is chiefly derived 
from what I heard on the spot, and from 
Haxthausen's work on Russia. There 
is an interesting article on this subject 
in the ' Revue des Deux Mondes,' xv. 



609, based on two romances by Soltikoff, 
and an official report presented to the 
Emperor in 1851. 

3 Revue des Deux Mondes, xv. 6zu 



LECT. XII. 



HIS REFORMS. 



383 



the Apocalypse as freely as it is sometimes used amongst 
ourselves, but against, not in favour of, change. They 
regard the Established Church as Babylon, themselves as 
the Woman who fled into the wilderness, Nicon as the 
False Prophet, the Emperor as the Great Dragon, Peter as 
Antichrist himself. Their converts from the Established 
Church are solemnly rebaptised. With every particularity 
of detail these converts are required to abjure the Niconian 
heresy ; to throw into the street the dust of the room where 
any Niconians may have sat ; never to eat of the same dish, 
nor to bathe in the same bath, with them. 1 Even the 
universal salutation of the Russian Easter has no binding 
force for them : 'Christ is risen.' 'Yes,' they repeat, with 
a contemptuous smile, ' our Christ is risen, but not yours.' 2 
And what are the grounds of this Eastern noncon- 
formity? They are grounds which all Western Churches 
Opposition would do well to hear — Rome or Geneva, England 
to Nkon. or Scotland, Conformists or Nonconformists, Free 
Church or Established Church— grounds almost equally 
instructive whether we recognise in them our own like- 
nesses or our own antipodes. It was deemed a mortal sin 
in the established clergy that they gave the benediction with 
three ringers instead of two. 3 Ecclesiastical history was 
ingeniously pressed into the service, and the true cause of 
the separation of the Latin from the Eastern Church was 
alleged to have been, that Pope Formosus had introduced 
into the world the impious and heretical doctrine of the 
three fingers ; in consequence of which he had been con- 
demned as a heretic, his body disinterred after death, and 
the offending fingers cut off, by his more orthodox suc- 
cessor. 4 Their form of the cross has three transverse beams 
instead of the Greek two or the Latin one. 5 It was a 
mortal sin to say the name of Jesus in two syllables instead 

1 Strahl. 298, 343. story see Robertson's Church History, 

3 Ibid. 330. ii. 385. 

3 Strahl. 13. '" Strahl. 304. 

4 Haxthausen, i. 323. For the true 



3*4 



PETER THE GREAT. 



XECT. XII. 



of three, 1 or to repeat the Hallelujah thrice instead of once. 
The course of the sun pointed out beyond doubt that all 
processions are to go from left to right, and not from right 
to left. 2 It was an innovation of the most alarming kind 
to read or write a word of modern 3 Russ, to use the service 
books of which the errors have been corrected by collation 
with the original copies, or to use the revision by which the 
Authorised Version has been purified from the mistakes 
produced through time or ignorance. It was an act of un- 
pardonable rashness to erase the word ' holy,' which had 
thus crept into the clause of the Nicene Creed which speaks 
of the Giver of Life, or the interpolation which caused them 
to speak in their baptismal service of * one baptism by fire 
1 for the remission of sins.' 4 In defence of this corruption 
of the text whole villages of these ' Fire-Baptists ' have been 
known to commit themselves to the flames. It is probably 
(with the exception of the somewhat similar foundation of 
the practice of Suttee 5 in India) the most signal instance of 
martyrdom in the cause, not even of a corrupt practice or a 
corrupt doctrine, but of a corrupt reading. 

These were the main charges against Nicon. But there 
were others still greater against Peter. It was a mortal sin 
Opposition to introduce into the churches pictures by Western 
to Peter. artists. All that Raphael or Correggio ever painted 
are abominations in the eyes of an ancient Russ. It is a 
mortal sin to hear the services chanted in the sweet notes 
which were brought by Nicon from Greece, im- 

PiCtures. ° 

proved by Peter from Germany, perfected by 
Catharine II. from Italy. It is a departure from every 
sound principle of Church and State to smoke 

Tobacco. x 1 

tobacco. The ancient Czars and Patriarchs had 
forbidden it, under pain of tearing out the offending nostrils. 

1 Strahl. 304. 4 Strahl. 285. 

2 Ibid. 253, 303. These practices 6 See an interesting account of this 
(probably Armenian) date from the corrupt reading of the Veda in Professor 
twelfth century. Max Miiller's Essay on Comparative 

* Haxthausen, i. 208. Mythology, p. 23. 



LECT. XII. 



THE DISSENTERS. 



385 



Peter for that very reason, and for commercial reasons also, 
tried to force the abhorred article on the now reluctant 
nation, and asked whether the smoking of tobacco was 
more wicked than the drinking of brandy. ' Yes,' was the 
deliberate answer, reaching perhaps the highest point of mis- 
quotation that the annals of theological perverseness present; 
' for it has been said that " not that which goeth into a man, 
1 " but that which cometh out of a man defile th him." ' It 
is, or was till very recently, a mark of heresy to 
0 a oes. ^ ^ unheard-of food of the potato, for that 
accursed ' apple of the earth ' is the very apple of the Devil, 
which was the forbidden fruit of Paradise. 

Up to this time the year had always begun on the 1st of 
September, and been dated from the creation of the world. 
Alteration The Emperor, on the opening of the eighteenth 
of Calendar, cen t ur y, conceived the daring design of giving to 
Russia the 1st of January as its New Year's Day, and the 
nativity of Christ as the era of its chronology. Was not this 
the very sign of Antichrist, that he should change the times 
and seasons? Could there be anything so impious as the 
assertion that the world was created in January, when the 
ground was covered with snow, not on S. Simon's day, 1 in 
September, when the corn and the fruits were ripe ? Did 
the Czar think that he could change the course of the sun? 
Most serious, however, of all Peter's changes, was the en- 
deavour to assimilate his countrymen to the West by for- 

ds bidding the use of the beard. The beard was in- 
deed one of the fundamental characteristics of the 
ancient Eastern faith. Michael Cerularius had laid it down 
in the eleventh century as one of the primary differences be- 
tween the Greek and Latin Churches. 'To shave the beard' 
was pronounced at the Council of Moscow in the seventeenth 
century, ' a sin which even the blood of martyrs could not 
expiate.' 2 It was defended, it is still defended, by texts of 
Scripture, by grave precedents, by ecclesiastical history. 

1 Heretic, i. 43. 3 Strahl, 282. 



386 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



4 The Levitical law commands us not to cut the hair or the 

* beard.' ' Man was made in the image of God : is the 

* image of God to be defaced?' 'The sacred pictures repre- 
' sent our Saviour bearded.' 4 But S. George,' it may be said, 

* has no beard.' 4 Yes, but S. George was a soldier, and 
' probably shaved in obedience to his commanding officer.' 
Even Peter, with all his energy, quailed before the deter- 
mined opposition. The nobles and the gentry, after a vain 
struggle, gave way and were shaved. But the clergy and the 
peasantry were too strong for him. Flowing locks and mag- 
nificent beards are still, 1 even in the Established Church, the 
distinguishing glory of the clerical order. To the peasants 
a compromise was permitted. Many when compelled to 
shave yet kept their beards to be buried with them, fearing 
lest without them they should not be recognised at the gates 
of heaven ; and finally a tax was substituted, of which the 
token of receipt was a coin stamped with a nose, mouth, 
moustaches, 2 and a bushy beard, and now throughout the 
ranks of nonconformity a shaven chin is nowhere to be seen. 

We smile as we read these struggles of a great monarch 
with his people for such trivial objects, and as we read these 
reasons for the separation of a vast community from 

Representa- ' , • J 

tives of old the Church of their fathers. Yet it is but an extreme 
. instance of the principle so dear to the natural eccle- 
siastical man; the doctrine of keeping things exactly as they 
are. In themselves too the Rascolniks are historically in- 
teresting, as the likeness of the ancient Russian Church and 
society as seen before Peter and before Nicon. They are 
truly the 'fossilised relics' of an earlier state. They are 
conservatives within conservatives ; orthodox with a super- 
lative orthodoxy. Whatever memorials they can retain or 
win of their former heritage are to them beyond all price. 
If a sacred picture is missing from an ancient church, the 



1 ' They are continually dressing and of which one if not two is in every 
combing it, and are very diligent in church.'— Macaritis, i. 325. 
looking at themselves in their mirrors, 3 Life of Peter, 108. 



LECT. XII. 



THE DISSENTERS. 



387 



suspicion always is that the Dissenters have stolen it. A 
Russian Prince being at Rome, at the time when the city 
was agitated by the unaccountable theft of the head of S. 
Andrew from St. Peter's, his Russian servant observed to 
him, with characteristic gravity, that no doubt it must have 
been carried off by a Rascolnik. The Czar is still to them 
an object of reverence, but it is the Czar as he appears in 
ancient pictures, not the modern Emperor. ' I cannot take 
' the oath of allegiance as you require,' replied a Rascolnik 
soldier to his commanding officer; 'if you will allow me to 

* take it to the real Czar, the White Czar, I will do it in a 
' moment ; but not to him whom you call Imperator. In 

* our sacred pictures and holy books we have the por- 

* trait of the true White Czar. He wears on his head a 
4 crown, on his shoulders a large gold-embroidered mantle, 
' in his hands a sceptre and a globe. But your Emperor 
' wears a uniform, a three-cornered hat, a sword by his side, 

* like other soldiers. You see, I know what I am about.' 1 

For a like reason the Patriarchal Cathedral at Moscow, 
already so often mentioned, 2 is to them (though rarely enter- 
ing its walls) a centre of devotion and reverence, even more 
than to the members of the Church itself. There all is old. 
No saint, no noted tomb, is within those walls later than the 
fatal reforms of Nicon. Demetrius of RostofT and Metro- 
phanes of Voronege, the latest saints of the Established 
Church, whose pictures have found a place in the adjacent 
cathedral of the Archangel, have not penetrated into the 
old Patriarchal Cathedral itself. No false imitations of 
Raphael and Rubens, no fancies of Catharine IT or Alex- 
ander L, break the antique uniformity of the paintings which 
cover the walls of that venerable sanctuary. Therefore it 
still unites the affections both of the Establishment and of 
the Dissenters. Once a year, on the festival of Easter, they 
come to gaze upon it ; and then, in the open square in front 
of it, hold amicable discussions with their brethren of the 

1 Haxthausen, i. 328. 1 Lectures X. and XL 

CC2 



388 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



Established Church. The controversy usually begins by 
remarks on the large fresco of the Apocalypse outside the 
Cathedral. They are, as may be inferred from the com- 
parisons before mentioned, careful students of the Revela- 
tion, and the picture naturally opens the whole question of 
the schism from Babylon, much as it might in Ireland be- 
tween Orangemen and Roman Catholics. They argue, we 
are told, calmly but with much earnestness, and often with a 
remarkable knowledge of the words of Scripture, and of 
the decrees of the Seven Councils. A wilder portion of the 
sect, who specially revere the memory of Peter III., as a 
martyr for the customs of their forefathers, 1 believe that 
the day will come when the great bell of the Kremlin shall 
sound long and loud to the uttermost ends of Siberia, where, 
according to their belief, that Prince still survives, and whence 
he will come back to his own, and set up the true Church on 
the ruins of the Reformed Establishment. 2 

The greater part of the Starovers are settled along the 
banks of the Volga, and amongst the Cossacks of the Don. 
Th . But there are some hundreds at Moscow, who since 
ment at the reign of Catharine II. have intrenched them- 
Moscow. se i ves j n t wo or three large settlements on the out- 
skirts of the city. Let us follow them thither. A visit to 
one such community will give us an adequate impression of 
all. Beyond the uttermost barrier of Moscow we find our- 
selves on the edge of the primeval forest, which here comes 
up almost to the town itself. An intricate road through 
lanes of gullies worthy of the days before the deluge of 
Peter's changes, brings us to a wild scattered village, the 
village of Preobajensk, or the ' Transfiguration.' It is cele- 
brated as the spot to which Peter in his youth withdrew from 
Moscow, and formed out of his companions the nucleus of 
what has since become the Imperial Guard, who from this 
origin are called the Preobajensky regiment. But there is 
no vestige of Peter or the Imperial Guard in what now 

1 Tooke's Catharine II., c. 8. a Haxthausen, i. 302. 



LECT. XII. 



THE DISSENTERS. 



389 



remains. A straggling lake extends itself right and left into 
the village, in which the Rascolniks baptise those who come 
over to them from the Established Church. On each side 
of it rise, out of the humble wooden cottages, 1 two large 
silk factories, the property of the leading Dissenters ; for 
they number in their ranks many merchants and manufac- 
turers, and (as amongst the Quakers) there is a strong com- 
munity of commercial interests in the sect, which contributes 
much to its vitality, and maintains the general respectability 
of the whole body. Hard by, within the walls as of a fort- 
ress, two vast enclosures appear. These are their two main 
establishments — one for men, the other for women. For in 
this respect also they exhibit a type of the ancient Russian 
life, in which, as we have before seen, the seclusion of the 
women was almost Oriental in its character. Within the 
establishment for men stand two buildings apart. The first 
is a church belonging to the moderate section of 
moderate the Starovers ; those, namely, who retain still so 
starovers. much regard t0 the Established Church as to be 

willing to receive from them ordained priests. The clergy 
who seceded in the original movement of course soon died 
out, and henceforth the only way of supplying the want was 
by availing themselves of priests expelled from the Estab- 
lished Church for misconduct, and of late years they have 
been fortunate enough to secure from the Metropolitan of 
the Orthodox Greeks in Hungary 2 the loan of a Bishop, 
who has continued to them a succession of new priests. 
But there has been also an attempt on the part of the 
Government and the clergy to incorporate them to a certain 
extent, by allowing them a regular priest of the Establish- 
ment, who is permitted to conform to their usages ; and 
not long ago a considerable step was taken by the Metro- 
politan, who agreed to consecrate a part of the church never 
consecrated before, himself in some particulars, as in the 

1 The settlement has been there since the great pestilence of 1771. Strahl, 332. 
a Christian Remembrancer, xxxv. 85. 



390 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



order of the procession, adopting their peculiar customs. 
Even to this church of Occasional Conformists, as they 
may be called, the studious exclusion of novelty gives an 
antique appearance, the more remarkable from its being in 
fact so new. Built in the reign of Catharine II., it yet has 
not a single feature that is not either old, or an exact copy 
of what was old. The long meagre figures of the saints, the 
ancient form of benediction, the elaborately minute repre- 
sentations of the Sacred History, most of them collected by 
the richer Dissenters from family treasures or dissolved con- 
vents, are highly characteristic of the plus quam restoration 
of mediaeval times. The chant, too, at once carries one 
back two hundred years. The Church resounds, not with 
the melodious notes of modern Russian music, but with the 
nasal, almost Puritanical, screech which prevailed before the 
time of Nicon, which is by them believed to be the * sole 
* orthodox, harmonious, and angelical chant.' 1 But the 
principle of the Old Believers admits of a more significant 
development. Within a stone's throw of the church which 
I have just described is a second building, nominally an 
The extreme almshouse or hospital for aged Dissenters, but, in 
starovers. f act) a re f U g e f or the more extreme members of 
the sect, who, in their excessive wrath against the Reformed 
Establishment, have declined to receive even runaway priests 
from its altars, and yet, in their excessive adherence to tra- 
ditional usage, have not ventured to consecrate any for them- 
selves. As the moderate Rascolniks are called ' Popofchins,' 2 
or 'those with clergy,' so these are called 4 Bezpopofchins,' 
or 'those without clergy.' It is a division analogous to that 
of the Lutherans and Calvinists in Germany, of the Presby- 
terians and Independents in England. Accordingly, the 
service of these extreme Dissenters is conducted by laymen, 
just so far as, and no farther than, could be performed with- 
out an altar and without a priest. Their only link with the 

1 Haxthausen, iii. 118. 

3 See Palmer's Orthodox Communion, pp. 296 — 302. 



LECT. XII. 



THE DISSENTERS. 



391 



National Church consists in their retention of a few particles 
of consecrated 1 oil, and of consecrated elements, preserved 
by constant dilution. The approaches of their milder brethren 
to the Establishment they regard, naturally, as a base com- 
promise with Babylon. In many respects, the ritual of the 
two sects is the same. In both buildings alike we see the 
same gigantic faces, the same antique forms. But, unlike 
the chapel of the Popofchins, or any church of the Establish- 
ment, the screen on which these pictures hang, the icono- 
sfasis, is not a partition opening into a sanctuary beyond, 
but is the abrupt and undisguised termination of the church 
itself. You advance, thinking to pass, as in the ordinary 
churches, through the painted screen to the altar, and you 
find that you are stopped by a dead wall. In front of this 
wall— this screen which is not a screen (so let me describe 
the service which I there witnessed, on the eve of the 
anniversary of the Coronation) — an aged layman with a 
long sectarian beard, chanted in a cracked voice such frag- 
ments of the service as are usually performed by the deacon ; 
and from the body of the church a few scattered worshippers 
(their scantiness probably occasioned by the refusal of the 
sect to recognise the great State festival) screamed out the 
responses, bowing the head and signing the cross in their 
peculiar way as distinctly as so slight a difference will permit. 
That scanty congregation, venerable from their very eccen- 
tricity, that worship in the dim light of the truncated 
church, before the vacant wall which must constantly re- 
mind them of the loss of the very part of the ceremonial 
which they consider most essential, is the most signal triumph 



1 This consecrated oil is that which 
is usedi n the Eastern rite of Confirma- 
tion, of which mention has already been 
made in Lecture I. p. 30. The Eastern 
Church has retained the usage still pur- 
sued in Lutheran Episcopal Churches, 
as in certain cases in the Roman Catholic 
Church, in administering Confirmation, 
not by Bishops, but by Presbyters. In- 
asmuch, however, as the essential part 



of this rite in the East consists, not in 
the imposition of hands, but in the chrism 
of anointing with the sacred oil, its con- 
nection with the episcopal order is still 
maintained in the circumstance that the 
oil is in the first instance consecrated by 
the Bishop in a caldron at Moscow, and 
afterwards distributed to the parish 
priests throughout the Empire. 



392 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



ever achieved by the letter that kills over the spirit that 
quickens ; a truly Judaic faith, united with a truly Judaic 
narrowness such as no Western nation could hope to pro- 
duce. It shows us the legitimate conclusion of those who 
insist on turning either forms, or the rejection of forms, into 
principles, and on carrying out principles so engendered to 
their full length. 

That the Russian Church, containing elements such as 
these, should have survived at all the shock of Peter's revo- 
The struggle lution, is a proof of no slight vitality. But, after 
with Peter. t he fi rst convulsion was over, it became apparent 
that (taking them as a whole) the religious feelings and the 
religious institutions of the country had embraced the change, 
and moved along with it. Many of the clergy did for a 
time make a stiff resistance ; the unfortunate Alexis fell a 

victim to his intimacy with some of the disaffected 
a.d. 1719. Bi s h 0 p S . t ne Old Believers broke out into open 
rebellion ; one of them attempted Peter's life ; some thou- 
sands of them, in the reign of the Empress Anne, intrenched 

themselves in the convent fortress of Solovetsky 
a.d. 1730. died, fighting to the last gasp, like the remnant 

of the Jewish people in the war of independence. But they 
were, after all, only a section of the nation, only a small 
minority of the Church condemned by the great mass of the 
national hierarchy. Like as they were in many respects to 
our Nonjurors, in this respect they were precisely opposite : 
the Nonjurors failed because they were a schism of clergy 
without laity ; the Old Believers failed because they were a 
schism of laity without clergy. Gradually the wild supersti- 
tions which even Nicon had not dared to touch gave way 
before the searching thrust of the Emperor. Pictures that 
wept on arriving at the inclement climate of St. Petersburg 
he resolutely detected and destroyed. His last public act 
was to order the removal of many of the chapels and pictures 
in the streets of Petersburg, and the order was carried out 
in the presence of the Holy Synod by the formal destruction 



LECT. XII. 



THE DISSENTERS 



393 



of a sacred picture of St. Nicholas, Theophanes of Novgorod 
striking the first blow with his hatchet. 1 In the oath still 
taken by the Russian Bishops at their consecration occur 
these remarkable provisions introduced by him, and pledging 
the hierarchy for ever against both the pious frauds and the 
corrupt lassitude to which all ecclesiastical dignitaries are 
naturally tempted : 2 

' I promise and vow that I will not suffer the monks to run 
from convent to convent. I will not, for the sake of gain, build, 
or suffer to be built, superfluous churches, or ordain superfluous 
clergy. I promise yearly, or at least once in three years, to re- 
quire on my visitations that there may be erected no tombs of 
spurious saints. Impostors who go about as possessed, with 
bare feet and in their shirts, I will give up to the civil authori- 
ties, that they may drive out the evil spirits from them with the 
knout. I will diligently endeavour to search out and put down 
all impostures, whether lay or clerical, practised under show of 
devotion. I will provide that honour be paid to God only, not 
to the holy pictures, and that no false miracles be ascribed to 
them.' 

Promises such as these, introduced into the most sacred 
offices of the Church, must turn the face of its rulers, despite 
of themselves, in the direction which an ancient Establish- 
ment is slow to follow. Even Protestant Churches might 
have gained much had their bishops and ministers been 
bound by a like solemn pledge not to support spurious 
readings or false aids of the truth, not to honour popular 
impostors, not to give way to prejudice or clamour when 
raised under the name of religion. 

How far Peter succeeded in his reforms without impair- 
ing the national faith, is a question which it would be pre- 
sumptuous to attempt to answer, unless with a greater know- 



1 Hermann, iv. 444. 

s Das Ausland, 1857, pp. 689—691. 
See Spiritual Regulations (Con=ett, 29), 
which gives instances both of Christian 
and Pagan superstitions which are to be 



put down ; amongst others, the deifica- 
tion of Friday under the name of Pet- 
nitza. ' They are like snow-drifts stop- 
ping the passage of men in the right 
road to truth.' (p. 30.) 



394 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



ledge than any foreigner can attain. But a few characteristic 
names emerge from the obscurity of the Russian hierarchy, 
which seem to justify the hope that the problem is not in- 
capable of solution. Theophanes of Plescow, Metrophanes of 
Voronege, Demetrius of Rostoff, were the Cranmer, the 
Ridley, and the Latimer who assisted the Russian Henry in 
his arduous work, and who, whilst they earned the hatred of 
the Old Believers, have yet, at least in the two latter instances, 
won a reverent admiration from the hearts of the nation at 
large. 1 To Metrophanes is dedicated the chapel of the 
Russian monastery in Mount Athos. The tomb of Deme- 
trius in the venerable church of Rostoff is contemned by 
the Dissenters, who cannot forgive the man that, when the 
Rascolniks said they would rather part with their heads than 
their beards, answered: 'You had better not. God will 

* make your beards grow again ; will He ever make your 

* heads grow again?' But by many a pilgrim the grave is 
visited as of a canonised saint, and no work is more popular 
in Russian cottages than his * Lives of the Russian Saints.' 

Advancing to the next generation we arrive at Ambrose, 
Archbishop of Moscow. He was known for his learning, 
especially in Hebrew, of which he gave proof in a 
m r ° e ' translation of the Psalter from the original. It is, 
however, in his death that we catch the clearest glimpse of 
the feeling of his time. Long before his appointment to the 
see of Moscow, he had been archimandrite of Nicon's be- 
loved convent of the New Jerusalem. Amongst the many 
traces which there remain of his munificence is a suite of 
rooms threaded by a secret corridor which was constructed 
by him as a means of escape, in consequence of a presenti- 
ment that he should meet with a sudden and violent end. 
It remains as a singular monument of an anticipation 
strangely fulfilled. After his translation to Moscow, the 
city was ravaged by a frightful pestilence. 2 The people 

1 For Theophanes, see Gonsett, p. 449. For Metrophanes, see Mouravieff, 402. 
» Strahl, 246. 



lect. xii. MODERN CHURCH OF RUSSIA. 



395 



crowded to a sacred picture in such numbers as to endanger 
the public health. At the advice of the civic authorities, 
Ambrose ventured to remove it. 1 At once the reli- 
' I77 °" gious feeling of the Russian populace, so terrible 
when really roused, was touched to the quick ; they rose in the 
same state of wild excitement as, within our time, was seen 
at St. Petersburg in the panic of the cholera. There was at 
Moscow no Nicholas to overawe them by his terrible pre- 
sence. They rang a tocsin with the great bell of the ancient 
Novgorod, as it hung in its belfry by the Sacred Gate. The 
Archbishop fled to the suburbs, and took refuge in the Don- 
skoi Monastery. He was dragged out, and stabbed to the 
heart, it is said, by one of the Old Dissenters. ' I send you 

* the incident,' writes the Empress Catharine in one of her 
letters to Voltaire, * that you may record it among your in- 

* stances of the effects of fanaticism.' We may repeat it here 
as a story characteristic, in all its points, of the Church and 
the people of Russia. 

We pass on yet again a few years, and come to the name 
which alone perhaps in the Russian hierarchy has obtained 
piato a European celebrity, Plato, Archbishop, and after- 
wards Metropolitan, of Moscow. ' What is the 
' thing the best worth seeing in Russia?' ' The Metropolitan 

* Plato,' answered the Emperor Joseph II., on his return 
from Petersburg to Vienna. Englishmen know him through 
his interviews with Dr. Clarke 2 and with Reginald Heber; 
and the gay Italian-like retreat which he built for himself 
under the social name of Bethany, in the pleasant woods of 
the Troitza Convent, is at once a memorial and a type of the 
easy graceful character which in him appeared at the head 
of the once barbarian clergy of Moscow. We see him, as 
he sits on his garden bank, in his country dress and large 
straw hat, laughing heartily at the mistakes of Englishmen 
about the Russian ceremonies, and at their eagerness to see 
a worship which they could not understand. He was the 

1 Clarke's Travels, i. ioo. 2 Ibid, i. 193— 202. 



396 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



favourite both of the civilised Catharine and, for a time, of 
her savage son. A portrait of him in the Bethany Convent 
represents him in his start of surprise when, by a device of 
the Empress Catharine, he heard suddenly in the service his 
name read as Metropolitan instead of Archbishop. Diderot 
came at her request to converse with him, and began his 
argument with ' Non est Deus.' Plato was ready with the 
instant retort, 1 Dixit stultus in corde suo, "Non est Deus."' 
Of him too is told a story, sometimes given to a divine of 
our own. The Empress wished to put to the test his powers 
of extemporaneous preaching, and having told him that 
she wished to hear him read a sermon written by one of 
her chaplains, sent to him, as he mounted the platform for 
preaching, a blank sheet. He looked at it for an instant, and 
then began, ' God created the world out of nothing,' and 
preached on that theme a splendid sermon. He rebuked 
the madness of his pupil, the Emperor Paul, by refusing to 
receive at his hands a military decoration, and by opposing 
his intention of officiating at divine service. In his last 
decline he sustained the spirit of the Emperor Alexander by 
his letter of encouragement in the terrible year of the French 
invasion. Approaching nearly to the character of a Euro- 
pean prelate, he was yet a Russian in heart and faith, and 
as such is still honoured by the mass of his countrymen. 

And if now we arrive at our own time, and ask how the 
Russian Church has fared in the nineteenth century, let me 
name three instances which show that the most modern of 
our Western movements are not altogether without parallels 
there. 

Philaret, the venerable Metropolitan of Moscow, 1 repre- 
sents, in some measure at least, the effect of that vast wave 
of reactionary feeling which we sometimes associate exclu- 



1 Since these lines were written, the 
death of the aged Metropolitan in 1867 
evoked an unusual amount of interest. 
I may be permitted to refer for further 
details of his life and character— includ- 



ing a specimen of his preaching — to an 
article published in Macmillan's Maga- 
zine in January 1868, entitled Kecolleo 
ions 0/ Philaret. 



LECT. XII. 



MODERN DIVINES. 



397 



sively with England, even with Oxford, and a few well-known 
names in Oxford, but which really has passed over the whole 
of Europe. As the gay retreat of 1 Bethany ' brings before 
us the lively career of Plato, so the austere revival of 
mediaeval hermitages in those same woods of Troitza, under 
the name of ' Gethsemane,' brings before us the attenuated 
Phiiaret of frame and serene countenance of the aged Philaret, 
Moscow. tne g en tie and saint-like representative in Russia of 
opinions and practices which in England are too near our- 
selves to be described more closely. 

Innocent, Archbishop of Kamtschatka, 1 is to the Rus- 
sian Church as the Bishop of New Zealand to our own an 
. example of the revived missionary spirit of a vast 

Innocent of r J r 

Kamt-^ colonial empire. Not in canoes or steamers, but 
in reindeer sledges, he traverses to and fro the long 
chain of Pagan islands which unite the northern portions 
of the Asiatic and American continents, and has, it is said, 
brought many to the Christian faith. 

One third instance in conclusion. The celebrated Ger- 
man philosopher, Schelling, conversing with a young Russian 
, . Prince who had come to Berlin to profit by his 

Professor m . . , r J 

the Troitza instructions, asked him whether he knew a famous 
Monastery. p ro f essor j n R uss i a whose name he mentioned, but 
of whom the Prince had never heard before. ' Young man,' 
said the old philosopher, 4 you ought to be ashamed of your- 
1 self for coming to seek instruction in other countries, and 
' not knowing what is to be found in your own. Of all men 
4 now living, there is no one else who has so well understood 
* and expounded the philosophy which you have come here 
1 to study.' The Prince returned, and lost no time in seek- 
ing the unknown prophet. He was found in the person of 
the parish priest of the village of Troitza, also discharging the 
duties of Professor of Philosophy in the adjacent monastery. 



1 Archbishop Innocent was in 1868 English prototype was nearly at the 
translated from Kamtschatka to Moscow same time transferred from New Zealand 
as the successor of Philaret --as his to Lichfield. 



393 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



In that monastery, the Oxford of Russia, Theodore Golo- 
bensky lived and died, a master of all the recent forms of 
German thought and speculation, yet esteemed and revered 
by all as an illustrious ornament of the Orthodox Church. 1 
Reserved in manner and speech, never leaving his retire- 
ment, he yet has left behind him a circle of enthusiastic 
disciples, whose eyes flash and whose cheeks glow when 
they speak of him, and who still in their own way communi- 
cate his methods of instruction. * Cicero,' he used to say, 
' maintains that there is no system of philosophy which is 
' not based on some fundamental absurdity. I maintain, on 

* the other hand, that there is no widely propagated error 
' which is not based on some fundamental truth. See the 
4 point of view from which any error has arisen. Then, and 

* then only, will you understand it' 

I have thus glanced at some of the leading characters of 
the modern Church of Russia, and of its existing tendencies. 
„ , . They will be enough to show that its inherent life 

Conclusion. . J . ° . . 

has neither been choked by its own tenacity of 
ancient forms, nor strangled by the violence of Peter's 



1 I speak partly from Haxthausen, i. 
63, partly from what I heard myself. I 
cannot leave this part of the subject 
without a word on those remarkable 
essays to which, under the name of 
' Quelques Mots par un Chretien O-tho- 
doxe,' I have so often referred, and to 
which the Letters of ' Ignotus ' in the 
Union Chretienne, i860, Nos. 30, 33, 36, 
37, 41, 42, may be added. The impres- 
sion left by these writings is more than 
confirmed by the description of all who 
had ever conversed with their gifted 
author, who was prematurely cut off in 
1861. M. Chamiakoff was a poet of an 
ardent temperament, and devoted to the 
ancient Orthodox traditions, which he 
regarded as the inestimable treasure of 
the Russian Church and nation But of 
all the peculiarities of his writings, none 
is more striking than the manner in 



which he united this devotion to his 
ancestral belief with a fearless spirit of 
inquiry both into ecclesiastical and 
sacred records. He was fully versed in 
German theology. His admiration of 
the character and learning of the late 
lamented Baron Bunsen was profound. 
He himself entered freely into the diffi- 
culties raised of late by Biblical criti- 
cism. Yet he never wavered in his faith 
and practice as an ' Orthodox Christian.' 
'Are you not afraid of these German 
speculations ? ' was the question put by 
an English traveller to another Russian 
layman, equally devout and sincere. 
' Not for a moment,' was the reply. 4 We 
have a singular gift of comprehending 
the ideas of others, and of amalgamating 
them with our own firm belief. I fear 
nothing, so long as we are true to our- 
selves.' 



LECT. XII. 



CONCLUSION. 



399 



changes. But what its future will be, who shall venture to 
conjecture ? Will it be able now, in these its latter days, to 
cease from foreign imitations, Eastern or Western, and de- 
velope an original genius and spirit of its own? Will it 
venture, still retaining its elaborate forms of ritual, to use 
them as vehicles of true spiritual and moral edification for 
its people? Will it aspire, preserving the religious energy 
of its national faith, to turn that energy into the channel of 
practical social life, so as to cleanse with overwhelming force 
the corruption and vice of its higher ranks, the deceit and 
rude intemperance of its middle and lower classes? The 
Russian clergy, as they recite the Nicene Creed in the Com- 
munion, embrace each other with a fraternal kiss, in order 
to remind themselves and the congregation that the Orthodox 
Faith is never to be disjoined from Apostolical Charity. Is 
there a hope that this noble thought may be more adequately 
represented in their ecclesiastical development than it has 
been in ours ? Will Russia exhibit to the world the sight of 
a Church and people understanding, receiving, fostering the 
progress of new ideas, foreign learning, free inquiry, not as 
the destruction, but as the fulfilment, of religious belief and 
devotion ? Will the Churches of the West find that, in the 
greatest National Church now existing in the world, there is 
still a principle of life at work, at once more steadfast, more 
liberal, and more pacific than has hitherto been produced 
either by the uniformity of Rome, or the sects of Protes- 
tantism ? 

On the answer to these questions will depend the future 
history, not only of the Russian Church and Empire, but of 
Eastern Christendom, and, in a considerable measure, of 
Western Christendom also. The last word of Peter strug- 
gling between life and death, was, as has been already de- 
scribed, Hereafter. What more awful sense the word may 
have expressed to him, we know not. Yet it is not beneath 
the solemnity of that hour to imagine that even then his 



400 



PETER THE GREAT. 



LECT. XII. 



thoughts leaped forward into the unknown future of his 
beloved Russia ; and to us, however curious its past history, 
a far deeper interest is bound up in that one word, which we 
may without fear transfer from the expiring Emperor to the 
Empire and the Church which he had renewed, — 'Here- 

' AFTER.' 



H 

CO 

>- 
Q 

to 
O 

<! 

O 

to 

H 



< 

S3 
H 

a! 
< 

* i" 

5 

Ph 







H 




W 








— <« 




N 








r-r-1 




Ph 








o 

H 


1— ( 


H 




O 

O 


W 




s 




3 


H 


< 


t/2 
►J 




o 


H 




< 








II 
II 




»— I 


ID 


£3 




l-H 


II 


_w 


W 


H 


— z 


W 


z 


Ph 







52 Ph 

o 



-a— W 
Ph 



D D 



o 



W § 
PV~ 

N g 



p 1/5 . • 
o o .bfl 

S u. ^ " 



t-t c 



oj «5 S rt: »h 



W 
Q 



PhUP4 PhCO Ph<£ £^ 



1/5 w ■ 



>-i N 00 O 

vo vo 

r-^ t->. 



t^CO CO 00 CO 



O 



8 •§ 



° gu* 

n3 g c 
'"7 o 

QJ ">T. 

3 in O 

0J " <u 

Pw Ph 

in i>. 



. t3 g S 
o 



o 



.4 s ^ h 



at c o . 
o « «j « 



o fl o 

- J S 
o 



O CO 

g . « 

Si 
■5 > t— 



— QJ 



_ a. o 

^ <u 3J <U 



§ ^ < . 
i <u a) o o<!yZ 



W N M 
t-^ x^. r>. 



^ O 




CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



[In the following Table I have given the chief events in the history of the Eastern 
Church. The references, where necessary, have been made to such works as, in each 
case, contained the most precise and copious statement of the original authorities.] 



Early Period. 

A.D. 

33 ~) All the early Churches, except those of North Africa, belong, in 
to > the first instance, to the Eastern Church : Jerusalem, Antioch, 
loo. J Alexandria, Ephesus, and even those of Rome and Gaul. 

The only Apostles, whose missions, by legend or history, 
extend to the West, are S. Peter and S. Paul. 
Legends of the foundation of the more remote Eastern Churches 
— of Edessa by S. Thaddeus, and of India by S. Thomas. 
135. Change of the see of Jerusalem into the see of yElia Capitolina. 
1 80 "1 

[ Catechetical school of Alexandria. Pantaenus, f 180. Clemens, 
254. J t213 ' ° ri § en 't254. 
260. Sabellius in Egypt. 

269. Council of Antioch condemns the Homoousion and the doctrines 

of Paul of Samosata. 
302. Foundation of the Church of Armenia. 
306. Melitian schism in Egypt. 
'309. Antony in Egypt (founder of Monachism). 
312. Conversion of Constaniine. 



Foundation of Eastern Empire. Period of the Councils. 

315. Eusebius of Csesarea. f cir. 342. 
318. Arius in Egypt. 

Foundation of the Church of Georgia, or Iberia, by Nina, 
(Wiltzch's Geography of the Church, 244.) 



4Q4 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

325. Council of JViccea [First General]. 

325. Condemnation of Arians and Melitians ; settlement of the Pas- 

chal controversy. 
Jacob of Nisibis. 1 350 [according to others 338 at the former 

siege of Nisibis]. 
Athanasius. f 373. 

326. Foundation of the Church of Abyssinia. Pilgrimage of Helena 

to Palestine. 
330. Foundation of Constantinople. 
336. Dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
338 "] Death of Constantine. Athanasian controversy ; the West 
to > Orthodox under Constans, the East Arian or Semi-Arian 
360. J under Constantius. 

341. Consecration of Ulfilas, Apostle of the Goths, t 388. 
362. Council of Alexandria avoids the division of Hypostasis and 
Ousia. 

355. Basil (of Csesarea). 'f 378. 

Epbrem Syrus (of Edessa). f 378. 

351. Cyril (of Jerusalem). f386. 

360. Gregory (Nazianzen). f 389. 

370. Gregory (of Nyssa). f 395. 

379. Theodosius, Emperor. f395« 

Suppression of Paganism in the East. 

381. Council of Constantinople [Second General]. Close of Arian 
controversy in. the Eastern Church. Condemnation of Mace- 
donius and Apoliinarius. Elevation of the Bishop of Con- 
stantinople to the second rank, next after the Bishop of Rome. 
Additions to the Nicene Creed (?). 

385. Controversy on the opinions of Origen, raised by Theophilus of 
Alexandria. 

367. Epiphanius. 1 403. 

390. Chrysostom. 1 407. 

391. Destruction of the Temple of Serapis at Alexandria. 
410. Theodore (of Mopsuestia). f429. 

431. Council of Ephesus [Third General]. Condemnation of Nesto- 

rius, and of Ccelestius and Pelagius [but as followers of 
Nestorius]. Prohibition of any new Creed. 

432. Separation of Nestorian Churches (in Chaldsea and India). 

41 5. Cassian (the semi-Pelagian) of Bethlehem and Marseilles. t435« 
412. Cyril (of Alexandria). t444. 
447. Legend of the Seven Sleepers. (Gibbon, c. 33.) 
449. Second Council of Ephesus (Latrocinium) supports Eutyches. 
451. Council of ' Chakedon [Fourth General]. Condemnation of Euty- 
ches. Promulgation of Nicene Creed in its present form. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



405 



A.D. 

Recognition of the five patriarchs : of Rome, Constantinople, 
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. 
440. Theodoret. 1 456. 

cir. "I First collection of Greek ecclesiastical law under the name of 

460. J * Apostolic Canons.' 

Foundation of the Monastery of Studius at Constantinople. 
(Evagrius, ii. II.) 

461. Simeon Stylites (the Elder). 1 461. 

Separation of the Monophysite Churches of Egypt, Syria, and 
Armenia from the Church of Constantinople. (Gieseler, 2nd 
Period, § ii. c. 2.) 

cir. ~l Dionysius the Areopagite (spurious writings of). (Gieseler, 2nd 

460. J Period, § ii. c. 2.) 

482. Henoticon of the Emperor Zeno [an attempt to reconcile the 
Orthodox and the Monophysites]. (Gieseler, ibid.; Gibbon, 
c. 47.) 

Timotheus ('the Cat ') at Alexandria. (Gieseler, ibid.) 

Peter (the Fuller), at Antioch (Gieseler, ibid.), introduced the 

formula * God was crucified. ' 
491. Act of toleration for the Monophysites by the Emperor Ana- 

stasius. 

518. Repeal of the Henoticon by the Emperor Justin I. (Gieseler, 

2nd Period, § ii. c. 2.) 
527. Justinian^ Emperor. (Gibbon, c. 45.) 1 565. 

Foundation of the Convent and Archbishopric of Mount Sinai. 

(Robinson's Biblical Researches, i. 184.) 
529. Close of the schools of Athens, and extinction of the Platonic 

theology. (Gibbon, c. 40.) 
532. Building of the Church of S. Sophia. 

544. Edict of Justinian condemning Origen and the 'Three Chapters' 

(i.e. the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ibas of Edessa, 
and Theodoret). (Gieseler, ibid.) 

545. Organisation of the Monophysite Churches of Syria and Meso- 

potamia by Jacobus Zanzalus or Baraddus of Edessa (t 578), 
hence the name of Jacobites. (Gieseler, ibid.) 
Monophysites in Arabia. (Ibid.) 

Nubians converted by the Coptic Church. (Ibid. c. 6.) 
553. Second Council of Constanti?tople [Fifth General]. Confirmation 

of the Edict of Justinian. 
565. The collection of Canons of the Councils, by John Siholasticus 

(t 578), combined with the ecclesiastical laws of Justinian, 

and formed into the ecclesiastical code of the Greek Church 

under the name of Nomo-Canon. 



406 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

570. Birth of Mahomet. 

587. John (the Faster), Patriarch of Constantinople, assumes the title 
of CEcumenical Patriarch against the remonstrances of Gregory 
the Great. (Gieseler, ii. 2, 3 ; Gibbon, c. 45.) 

589. Third Council of Toledo. Extinction of Arianism in Spain. 

Adoption of the Nicene or Constantinopolitan Creed into the 
Western Liturgy. Insertion of the words ' Filioque. ' Be- 
ginning of the rupture between the Eastern and "Western 
Churches, on the Procession of the Holy Ghost. (Robertson, 
vol. ii. 1, 7.) 

Formal separation of the Armenian Church from Constantinople, 
at the Council of Dwin. 
616. Rise of Monothelite Heresy in Syria ; supported by Sergius, 
Patriarch of Constantinople, and Pope Honorius. (Gieseler, 
ii. 3, 2 ; Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 2.) 



Struggle with Mahometanistn. 
622. Flight of Mahomet to Medina. (Hegira. ) 

628. Reconquest of Jerusalem from the Persians by the Emperor 
Heraclius. Institution of the Festival of the Cross, Sept. 14. 
(Gieseler, ii. 3, I.) 

632. Death of Mahomet. 

■634. Conquest of Syria by Omar. 

636 ") Nestorian Missions as far as India and China. (Gieseler, ii. 2,6; 

to > Robertson, vol: ii. I, 8.) 
781. J Theological College at Nisibis. (Ibid.) 

638. ' £cthesis' of Heraclius. (Gieseler, ii. 3, 2.)-) ^ , r IV 
■, J _ r p 1 « J ' ; On Monothelite 

640. Conquest of Egypt by Amrou. J- 

648. 1 Type' of Constans II. (Gieseler, ii. 3, 2.) J ^' 

651. Conquest of Persia by Othman. 

'660. Death of Ali, and schism of the Shiahs. 

Foundation of the Paulician sect in Armenia by Constantine 

(t684). (Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 8 ) 
668. Theodore of Tarsus (the Greek), Archbishop of Canterbury, first 

organiser of the English Church. (Robertson, vol. ii. I, 3 ; 

Gieseler, ii. 3, 3.) 
676. Foundation of the Maronites by Maro (f 707). (Gieseler, ii. 3, 2 ; 

Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 2.) 
680. Third Council of Constantinople [Sixth General]. Condemnation 

of the Monothelites and of Pope Honorius. (Robertson, voL 

ii. 1, 2.) 

690. Persecution of the Paulicians. (Robertson, vol. ii. 1, 8.) 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



407 



A.D. 

692. Council ' in Trullo ' (in the vaulted chamber at Constantinople), 
called Quinisextum, or irei/TeVn7 ; as completing the Fifth and 
Sixth General Councils on ecclesiastical regulations. The 
present restrictions on the marriage of the Eastern clergy 
established; i.e. no marriage to take place after ordination, 
and no Bishop to be married. This is the first Eastern Coun- 
cil repudiated by the West. (Gieseler, ii. 3, 2 ; Robertson, 
vol. ii. 1, 2. 1, 9.) 

707. Conquest of North Africa by the Arabs. 

712. Conquest of Spain. 



Iconoclastic Controversy. 

726. Beginning of the Iconoclastic controversy by the Edict of Leo 
Isauricus. 

John of Damascus (Chrysorrhoas, Mansur), the last Greek 
Father, chief theologian of the East and supporter of the 
sacred pictures, t 760. (Gieseler, iii. 1, 1 ; Robertson, vol. 
ii. 1, 4.) 

730. Annexation (by Leo Isauricus) of Calabria, Sicily, and Illyricum 

to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. 
732. Final repulse of the Mussulmans from the West by Charles 

Martel. 

754. Fourth Council of Constantinople. Condemnation of sacred 
pictures. (Gieseler, iii. 1, 1.) 

787. Second Council of Niccea [Seventh General]. Sanction of the 
veneration of sacred pictures. Its decrees condemned by 
Charlemagne in the Council of Frankfort (790). (Robertson, 
vol. ii. 1, 7.) (Its oecumenical character is well discussed in 
Neale, Introd. ii. 132.) 

790. Theodore Studita, defender of the sacred pictures, f 826. 

791. The ' Filioque ' inserted in the Creed at the Council of Friuli. 

(Robertson, vol. ii. I, 7.) 

809. The '■Filioque'' inserted at the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle. 
(Gieseler, iii. I, 2 ; Robertson, vol. ii. I, 7.) 
Athanasian Creed now first appears in France. (Ibid.) 

815. Pictures again suppressed. (Robertson, ii. 2, I.) 

835. Spread of the Paulicians into Asia Minor. Cruel persecution of 
them by Theodora. ( Gibbon, cap. 54. ) 

842. Pictures again sanctioned. Orthodox Sunday instituted. (Robert- 
son, vol. ii 2, I.) 

848. Preaching of Constantine (Cyril) among the Khozars (Crimea). 
(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 4 ; Gieseler, iii. 2, 2, note c. ) 



408 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

858. Photius, the chief theologian of the East (t89i), appointed 
Patriarch of Constantinople [by Caesar Bardas, regent during 
the minority of Michael III.] in the place of Ignatius (f 878), 
who is supported by Pope Nicholas I. (Robertson, vol. ii. 
2, 3 ; Gieseler, iii. 2, 2. ) 



Conversion of Sclavonic Tribes, and Struggle with See of Rome. 

858. Restoration of heathen literature by Caesar Bardas. (Hallam, 
Middle Ages, c. ix. pt. 2 ; Gibbon, c. 53.) 

860. Foundation of the Churches of Bulgaria and Moravia by Con- 
stantine (Cyril) (f 868) and Methodius (t 900), from Constan- 
tinople. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3 ; Gieseler, iii. 2, I.) 
Bogoris baptized. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3.) 

862. Invention or Improvement of Sclavonic alphabet by Cyril and 
Methodius. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 4.) 
Foundation of Russian Empire by Ruric. 

866. First Russian expedition to Constantinople. Baptism of Oskold 

and Dir. 

Photius endeavours to reunite the Armenian with the Orthodox 
Church. 

867. Photius, in Council at Constantinople, deposes and excommuni- 

cates the Pope. The acts of this Council are annulled in a 
Council at Rome, and a Council at Constantinople, called by 
the Latin Church the Eighth General Council (but not ac- 
knowledged by the Eastern Church), by which Photius is 
anathematised. The controversy is embroiled by the rival 
claims of Constantinople (through both Photius and Ignatius) 
and of Rome to the newly converted kingdom of Bulgaria. 
(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3, &c.) 

870. Conversion of heathen Sclavonians and Mainotes in Greece. 

(Gieseler, iii. 2, 2.) 

871. Temporary conversion of Bohemia by Methodius. (Robertson, 

vol. ii. 2, 4; Gieseler, iii. 2, I.) 

878. Photius, on Ignatius's death, restored to the Patriarchate. 

(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3.) 

879. A Council at Constantinople reverses that of 867. (Robertson, 

vol. ii. 2, 3.) 

880. Use of Sclavonic in Church services. (Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3 ; 

Gieseler, iii. 2, 1.) 
883. Mission of Alfred to the Christians of S. Thomas. (Gibbon, 
c. 470 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



409 



A.D. 

886. Photius is deposed by Leo (the Wise) ; t dies in exile, 891. 
(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 3.) 
"The Macedonian Emperors, Basil, Leo, Alexander, Constantine 
(Porphyrogennetos), favour learning. 
867 Bibliotheca of Photius. (Gieseler, iii. 2, 2.) Lives of the 
to ^ Saints, by Symeon Metaphrastes of Constantinople (f 975), 
886. Annals of Alexandria, by Eutychius of Alexandria (1940), 
commentary by (Ecumenius (950), Symeon Theologus (of Con- 
stantinople) (990). (Gieseler, iii. 2, 2 ; Gibbon, c. 53.) 
"Description of the Empire, by Constantine (Porphyrogennetos). 
(Gibbon, c. 53.) 

955. Conversion of the Russian Princess Olga. (Robertson, vol. ii. 
2, 7.) 

1 Annexation of Naples and Sicily to the Greek Empire by Nice- 
j phorus and John Zimisces. (Gibbon, c. 52. ) 

976. Settlement of the Paulicians in Bulgaria and at Philippopolis, 

whence they spread into Europe. (Gibbon, c. 54 ; and 

Gieseler, iii. 2, 3.) 
988. Conversion of Vladimir, and foundation of the Church of Russia. 

(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 7 ; Gieseler, iii. 2, 2. ) 
Controversy respecting the use of leavened bread by the Eastern, 

and of unleavened by the Western, Church. (Robertson, vol. 

ii. 3, I- ) 

IOl8. Bulgaria finally annexed to the Byzantine Empire. (Robert- 
son, vol. ii. 3, ad fin.) 

1020. Michael Psellus (the younger), ' the Prince of Philosophers,' 
fnoi. (Gieseler, iii. 3, Appendix I.) 

1050. Invasion of the Greek Empire by the Seljukian Turks. 
(Robertson, vol. ii. 2, 4 ) 

1054. The Greek Provinces of Apulia, on their annexation by the 
Normans to the see of Rome, are warned in a pastoral letter 
of Michael Cerularius (Patriarch of Constantinople) against 
the practices of the Latin Church. Excommunication by the 
Pope laid on the altar of S. Sophia (16th July), and answered 
by Michael. Final rupture between Eastern and Western 
Churches. (Robertson, vol. ii. 3, 1.) 



Crusades. 

1065. Conquest of Armenia and Georgia by the Turks. (Gibbon, 
c 57.) 

1074. Conquest of Asia Minor. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

1076. Conquest of Jerusalem. (Gibbon, c. 57.) 
1089. S. David III., King of Georgia.— Flourishing period of the 
Georgian Church. (Neale, i. 63.) 

1 147' \ -P assa § e °f the Latins in the first, second, and third Crusades 
1 189" j through, the Greek Empire. (Gibbon, cc. 58, 59.) 

1096. Occupation of the Holy Places of Palestine by the Latins. 
1070. Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria, commentator, t 1 1 12. 
Euthymius (Zigabenus), of Constantinople, t 1118. 
Nicetus (Acominatus), historian and theologian. f 12 16. 
(Gieseler, iii. 3, Appendix I.) 
1 182. Maronites join the Latin Church. (Robertson, vol. ii. 3, 2 ; 
Gieseler, iii. 3, Appendix I. and note.) 
Council of Bari : called to consider the relations of the Latin 
Church to the Greeks of Apulia. Anselm present, hence his 
treatise ' De Processione S. Spirit us. Contra Grcecos.'* 
1 1 80. Theodore Balsamon. f 1204. (Gieseler, iii. 3, Appendix I. ) 
H90. Eustathius of Thessalonica. f 1 198. Commentary on the 

Iliad. Favourite of the Comncni. 
1204. Fourth Crusade. Ocaipation of Constantinople by the Latins. 

(Gibbon, c. 60.) Decline of the Greek language and literature. 
(See Hallam, Middle Ages, c. ix. part 2.) 
Greek Emperors retire to Nicaea. 
1240. Invasion of Russia by the Tartars. 

1261. Constantinople recovered by the Greeks under Michael Palaso- 

logus. (Gibbon, cc. 61, 62 ; Gieseler, iii. 3, Appendix I.) 
1240. Rise of the Ottoman Turks. (Gibbon, c. 64.) 
1270. Last Crusade. 



Final Struggle with Rome, and with Mahometanism. 

1260. Thomas Aquinas. Opusc. contra Grcecos. (Gieseler, iii. 3, 
Appendix I. ) 

1274. Temporary reconciliation between the Emperor Michael and 

Pope Martin IV. (Gibbon, c. 62 ; Gieseler, ibid. ) 
1260. Abulpharagius, historian, Jacobite Patriarch of the East, f 1286. 

1 29 1. Expulsion of Latins from Constantinople. 

1292. Armenians reconciled for a time to the Latin Church. (Gieseler, 

iii. 4, Appendix II.) 
1300. S. Stephen Dushan, King of Servia. Patriarchate of Servia,, 
(Neale, i. 70.) 
Ebed-Jesus, Nestorian Theologian of Nisibis. f 13 18. 
I320. Conquest of Asia Minor by the Ottoman Turks. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



411 



A.D. 

1339. Attempt of the Greek Emperors to effect a reconciliation with 

the Popes. (Gibbon, c. 66.) 
1341. Passage of the Ottomans into Europe. (Ibid. c. 64.) 
1341 "I Controversy on the uncreated light of Tabor. (Ibid.) 

to >J3arlaam condemned, joins the Latin Church. (Gieseler, iii. 4, 
1 35 1. J Appendix I.) 

Barlaam, friend of Petrarch, and first restorer of Homer to the 

West. (Gibbon, c. 66.) 
1363. Leo Pilatus, friend of Boccaccio. (Gibbon, c. 66.) 
1396. Battle of Nicopolis. Defeat of Christians by Bajazet, (Gibbon, 

c. 64.) 

The Emperor Manuel visits France and England. (Gibbon, 
c. 66.) 

1415. Manuel Chrysoloras. (+ at Constance.) (Gibbon, ibid.) 
Theodore Gaza. (Ibid. ) 
Demetrius Chalcondyles. (Ibid.) 
1450, George of Trebizond. f 14S6. (Ibid.) 

John of Argyropulus. (Ibid.) 
1420. Nicephorus, author of Ecclesiastical History. 1 1450. 
1438. The Emperor John Palaeologus visits Italy to effect a reunion. 

Council of Ferrara, Florence. (Gibbon, c. 66.) 
1440. Isidore of Moscow. Bessarion of Nice. Mark of Ephesus. 
Reunion (July 6th) dissolved at Constantinople and Moscow. 
(Gibbon, cc. 66, 67.) 
1444. Nov. 10. Victory of t^e Turks over the Hungarians and the 

Greeks at Varna. (Gibbon, c. 67.) 
1453. May 29. Capture of Constantinople, and fall of the Greek 
Empire. (Gibbon, c. 68.) 
Gennadius, last independent Patriarch. Abdicated 1459. 
1477. Expulsion of Tartars from Russia. 



Modern Condition of the Eastern Church. 

1525 — 1550. Portuguese mission to Abyssinia. (Gibbon, c. 47.) 
1559 — 1632. Jesuit mission to Abyssinia. (Ibid.) 
1599 — 1663. Portuguese mission to Christians of S. Thomas. (Gibbon, 
c. 47.) 

1582. Patriarchate of Moscow established by Jeremiah, Patriarch of 
Constantinople. (Mouravieff, c. 6.) 

1590. ' Uniats,' or Catholic Greeks of Poland. (Neale, i. 56.) 

1600. Cyril Lttcar, Greek Patriarch of Alexandria (1602). Adopts 
Protestant views (1612). Corresponds with Archbishop Abbot 
(1616). Patriarch of Constantinople (1621). Corresponds 



412 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



A.D. 

with Archbishop Laud (1627). Presents the Alexandrian 
MS. to Charles I. (1628). Murdered (1638). (Neale, Alex. 
Church, ii. 356—456.) 
161 3. Expulsion of Poles from Russia. 

1642. Council of Jassy (or Constantinople). Condemnation of Cyril 
Lucar. ' Orthodox confession of Peter Mogila. ' 

1672. Council of Bethlehem. Condemnation of Calvinism. 

1679. Migration of the Greeks of Servia under Arsenius Tchernovitch, 
Metropolitan of Servia, into Hungary, and establishment at 
Carlovitz. (Christian Remembrancer, xxxv. 35.) 

1764. Patriarchate of Moscow suppressed. 

1765. Patriarchate of Servia suppressed. (Neale, i. 7 1 *) 
1801. Annexation of Georgia to Russia. (Neale, i. 65.) 
1 82 1. War of Greek independence against Turkey. 

1839. Reunion of Polish Uniats to the Russian Church. (Mouravieff, 
431.) 

1850. The independence of the Church of Greece recognised by Con- 
stantinople. 



The dates specially belonging to Russian History will be found at 
the end of Lectures IX. X. XI. XII. 



PLAN OF THE PATRIARCHAL CATHEDRAL OF MOSCOW 

(the uspensky church, or church of the repose of the blessed virgin) 

IN WHICH THE METROPOLITANS AND PATRIARCHS ARE BURIED, 
AND IN WHICH THE CZARS ARE CROWNED. 




This Cathedral was built a.d. 1475 — 1479, by Aristotle of Bologna, under Ivan III., on 
the site of the original Church founded by Peter, the first Metropolitan, under Ivan I., a.d, 
1325. For the general arrangements of Eastern Churches, see Neale, Introd. i. 175 — 216. 



EXPLANATION 

A. ' Iconastasis,' or Screen for the Sacred 

Pictures. 

B. 1 Bema,' or Sanctuary. 

C. C. ' Soleas,' or Choir. 

D. Nave. 

E. ' Proaulion,' or Porch. 

F. F. F. F. Columns. 



>F REFERENCES. 

a. a. a. a. Pictures of the Seven Councils. 

b. b. b. Pictures of the Last Judgment. 

c. c. c. c. c. c. Pictures of the Life and Death 

of the Virgin. 

d. d. d. d. Pictures of the Patriarchs and 

Fathers of the Church. 



Principal altar. 

Throne of the Archbi-hop, Metropolitan, 

or Patriarch of Moscow. 
Side altar, dedicated to S. Demetrius of 

Thessalonica. 
Side altar, dedicated to SS. Peter and 

Paul. 

These two side altars are separate pieces 
of the one chief altar ; but placed here 
to allow of access to them without 
passing through the Sanctuary. 

Stairs leading to ' the Chapel of the 
Blessed Virgin ' in the cupola, where 
the election of the Patriarchs took 
place. 

Stairs leading to the Sacristy, containing 
the relics and curiosities of the Church. 
Tomb of S.Theognostus, 



Tomb of S. Peter, 



\ Metropolitans. 



Shrine, containing sacred relics. 

Tomb of S. Philip, Metropolitan. 

Sacred picture of our Lady of Vladimir. 

Tomb of S. Jonah, Metropolitan. 

Tabernacle over 'the Holy Tunic,' pre- 
sented to the Church by Philaret, 
Patriarch. 

Tombs of SS. Photius and Cyprian. 

The ancient throne of the Czar (called 
' of Vladimir Monomachus '). 

Throne of the Patriarch. 

Throne of the Empress. 

Place of the platform on which the Em- 
peror is crowned. 

Tomb of Philaret, Patriarch. 

Tomb of Hermogenes, Patriarch. 

Royal Doors. 

Platform in front of the choir. (See Lec- 
ture XI. p. 353.) 



The Pictures on the A liar Screen (A) are thus arranged. 



x. The highest compartment, the Patriarchs 
ranged on each side of the jl ternal 
Father. 

2. The Prophets leaning towards the Virgin 

and Son. 

3. Minute representations of the Life of the 

Saviour. 

4. Angels and Apostles on each side of the 

Saviour. 



The Sacred Pictures or Icons : 

a) ' The Blessed Virgin,' brought by 

Vladimir from Kherson. 

b) ' The Saviour,' sent by the Em- 

peror Manuel. 

c) ' Repose of the Elessed Virgin,' 

painted by Peter, the Metro- 
politan. 



On the Doors (' the Royal Doors,' so called because the Czar or Emperor passes through 
them on the day of his coronation) are painted the Four Evangelists, to represent that 
through this entrance come the Glad Tidings of the Eucharist. On each side of the Doors 
are represented (in ancient churches) Adam and the Penitent Thief, as the first fallen and 
the first redeemed. On the farther compartments are represented the Virgin and the Fore- 
runner (the Baptist), and at the northern corner the iaint to whom the Church is dedicated. 

On each side of the entrance to the Nave are (sometimes) represented the Publican and the 
Pharisee, as the two opposite types of worshippers. Where the Porch is extended, it con- 
tains the Pagan Philosophers and Poets, each with a scroll in his hand containing a sentence 
anticipatory of the Gospel. 

The south side of the Church is always occupied by the Seven Councils. The north side 
either by the life of the Patron Saint of the Church (in the Uspensky Church, of the 
Virgin) or by the Parables. In the Donskoi Church all the events of the Old and New 
Testaments are represented. 

The Columns are painted with the figures of Martyrs. 

This Plan is inserted both as a general specimen of a Russian Church, and specially for the 
illustration of Lectures IX. X. XI. 




icritmer, Arm 



INDEX. 



[The Index does not apply to the Introductory Lectures or the 
Chronological Tables, ,] 



ABGARUS 

A BGARUS, 5 

Absolution, 36 ; of Con- 

stantine, 193 
Abyssinia, Church of, IO-12, 27, 

43 ; its foundation, 218 
Acesius, 100, 162, 165 
Ait-allaha, 97 
Alexander I. of Russia, 17 
Alexander the Great, 14 
Alexander of Alexandria, 93, 170, 

214 

Alexander of Byzantium, 100, 170 
Alexander Nevsky, 300 
Alexandria, Church of, 9, 10, 139, 

149, 217 ; scenes at, 222, 228 
Alexandrian theology, 23 
Alexis of Russia, 19, 348, 354, 

359 ; death of, 361 
Ambrose of Moscow, 394 
Ancyra, Council of, 83 
Andrew, S., 281 
Antioch, 7 ; Patriarchs of, 7 
Anthony the Hermit, 25, 214, 219 
Antony the Roman, 282 
Apocryphal Gospels, 252 
Aquinas, Thomas, 23 
Ararat, 4, 6, 7 

Arianism, its political importance, 
59, 60 ; theological importance, 
61, 62; its dogmatism, 79; its 
polytheism, 79; its violence, 80, 
228 

E 



BEARDS 

Ariminum, Council of, 21 

Aristaces, 98, 168 

Arius, 94, 124 ; his banishment, 

138; his restoration, 203; his 

death, 204 
Armenia, Church of, 6, 7, 18, 34, 

98, 142 

Art, absence of, in Eastern Churches, 
30, 268 

Asceticism, 25 

Assemanni, 8 

Athanasian Creed, 51, 235 

Athanasius, 9, 19, 25 ; his appear- 
ance, 213 ; at the Council of 
Nicsea, 93, 130, 131, 153; his 
history, 213, &c. ; contra mundum, 
225 ; his character, 229, &c. ; 
Festal Letters, 149 

Athos, 4, 12, 203 

Augustine, 23 

Auxanon, 100 



"D ABVLON, Patriarchs of, 5 
^ Bahari, 251 

Baptism, immersion, 28; on death- 
bed, 205, 231 
Basil of Csesarea, 288 
Basil of Moscow, 320 
Baucalis, Church of, 93 
Beards, 394 

E 



4*^ 



INDEX. 



BIBLE 

Bible, study of, in the East, 37 ; 
translation of, 297, 298 ; con- 
trasts with the Koran, 254, 256- 
258 ; vernacular translations of, 
297, 338 

Bishops, jurisdiction of, 155 ; con- 
secration of, 156 ; translation of, 
158 

Buddhist Councils, 65 

Bulgaria, Church of, 16, 17, 285, 

298 
Bunsen, 398 

Burnet, his intercourse with Peter 
the Great, 371, 374, 375 



p^SAREA, 157 
^ Cairo, 9 

Calendar, Greek and Latin, 27 ; 
alteration of Russian, 379 

Canon of Scripture, 154 

Canons of Nicaea, apocryphal, 154 ; 
genuine, 155 

Catholic, the name of, 21 

' Catholic Greeks,' 5 

Celibacy of the Clergy, 160 

Chalcedon, Council of, 7, 8, 18, 58, 
66, 72, 141 

Chaldaea, Church of. See Nes- 
torians. 

Chamiakoff, 398 

Charlemagne, 307 

' Christian, ' name of, 7 ; for Rus- 
sian peasants, 324 

Chrysostom, 7, 23, 24, 26, 213 ; 
prayer of, 57 

Clergy, power of, 36 ; marriage of, 
39 ; celibacy of, 160, 161 

Confirmation, 28, 391 

Constantia, 136, 192; genealogy of, 
211 ; her death, 203 

Constantine, his appearance, 178 ; 
his character, 176, 179, 182 ; his 
conversion, 180 ; his religion, 
183 ; his Church policy, 122, 
186; his letter to the Alexandrian 
Church, 81; entrance into Coun- 
cil of Nicsea, 114; speech, 118 ; 



DIONYSIUS 

rebuke to the bishops, 121 ; his 
reception of the Creed, 131, 134; 
his attack on Arius, 134, 140 ; 
speech to Acesius, 166; farewell 
address, 166 ; his devotions and 
preaching, 188, 189; his domestic 
tragedy, 191, Sec. ; Donation of, 
195 ; his baptism and death, 205, 
&c. ; his funeral and tomb, 209 
Constantinople, 15, 20, 26, 51, 
279, 288, 291 ; foundation of, 
197, &c. ; its position in Church 
history, 201 ; Patriarchs of, 201 ; 
Council of, 18, 58, 141 ; influence 
of. 343 

Coptic Church, 8, 9 ; represented 
by Athanasius, 213, 220 

Corinthians, spurious Epistles to 
and from, 7 

Councils, General, period of, 18, 
55> 57! deliberative, 64; repre- 
sentative, 65 ; imperial, 66 ; 
fallible, 70 ; moderating, 73 ; 
places of meeting, 83 

Creed of Constantinople, 141 

Creed of Eusebius, 1 26 

Creed of Nicsea, ^32 ; its finality, 
140 ; its character and use, 171, 
172, 399 

Crispus, murder of, 192 ; statue of, 
197 

Crusades, 20, 26, 248 
Cyril Lucar, 333 
Cyril of Alexandria, 9, 236 
Cyril of Bulgaria, 16, 280, 298 
Czar of Russia, 306 ; his corona- 
tion, 308 



"T)AMASCENUS, John, 7, 23 
Dancing, part of ritual, IO 

Danubian provinces, 16 
Deacons, 159 

Demetrius, the child, 329, 330 
Demetrius of Rostoff, 394 
Demetrius of the Don. 327 
Dervishes, 322 
Dionysius of the Troitza, 329 



INDEX. 



419 



DNIEPER 

Pnieper, 4, 281 

Don, 4 ; battle of the, 327 

Druses, 8 

Dushan, Stephen, 16 



T?AST, the, scenery of, 45 

Eastern Church, divisions of, 
2-1 7 ; history of, 18-20; charac- 
teristics of, 20-40 

Edessa, 5 

Emperor, position of, 39; as con- 
vening Councils, 66 

England, Church of, 58 ; its con- 
nection with the East, 48 ; with 
Peter the Great, 368, 374, 375 

Ephesus, Council of, 5, 18, 141, 

143 
Erasmus, 60 

Ethiopia. See Abyssinia 
Eucharist administered to infants, 

29 ; doctrine of, 35 
Eusebius of Csesarea, 19, 74, 96, 

109, 117, 126, 135, 136, 148, 

158, 181, 204 
Eusebius of Nicomedia, 99, 128, 

136, 158, 207 
Eustathius of Antioch, 95, 117, 

158 

Eustocius, 203, 208 
Eustorgius, 104 



7AUSTA, murder of, 192, 193 

French invasion of Russia, 
277 



GARDINER, Conversion of 
Colonel, 182 
George, S., legend of, 233 
Germanus, 13 
Greece, Church of, 152 
Greek Church, 13-15 
Gregory Nazianzen, 98, 279 ; on 
Athanasius, 222, 230, 239 ; on 
Councils, 70 
Gregory the Illuminator, 7, 98 



JUSTINIAN 

XT ELENA, 177, 192, 193, 202, 
A A 203 

Hermits of the East, 25 ; of Russia, 
3i8 

Hermogenes of Csesarea, 99, 132 
Hermogenes of Russia, 329 
Holy Places in Palestine, 202 
Homoousion, 128, 136, 137 
Hooker on Athanasius, 224 ; on 

Ivan the Terrible, 310 
Horsey, Sir Jerome, his account of 

Ivan IV., 310 
Hosius of Cordova, 105, 116, 129, 

130, 132, 194, 234 
Hungary, 16, 248 
Hypatius of Grangra, 162 
Hypostasis, 130, 133, 241 



TCONOCLASTS, 31 

Ignatius, 7 
Immaculate Conception, 252 
Incarnation, doctrine of, 174, 239 
Innocent of Kamtschatka, 397 
Ivan III., 327, 333 
Ivan IV. the Terrible, 309-313, 
317, 321, 322, 325, 334 



JACOBITES, 7 

J James of Nisibis, 97, 139, 161, 
165 

Jaroslaff (the town), 363 
Jaroslaff I., 300 

Jerusalem, Church of Holy Sepul- 
chre at, 204, 354, 355; Patriarchs 
of, 7, 97, 156 

Jerusalem, New, monastery of, 353, 
354 

Jewish influences, 10, 27, 333 
John the Persian, 98 
Joseph, apocryphal history of, 6 
Jowett, Professor, on -the style of 

S. Paul, 259 
Judith, Book of, 155 
Justinian, 39, 58 



420 



INDEX. 



K 2 



KAYE 

'AYE, Bishop, 60, 107, no, 

■ 13° 
Khudr, El, 253 
Kieff, 4, 281, 282, 319 
Kneeling forbidden, 159 
Knox, Alexander, 239 
Koran, 247, 255, &c. 



LAITY, independence of, 36, 
269 

Lateran palace and church, 196 
Lebanon, cedars of, 4, 8 
Legends, use of, 75, 169, 171 
Leontius of Ceesarea, 98 



TV/TACARIUS of Antioch, 336 
Macarius of Jerusalem, 97 
Mahomet, 19 ; his biography, 247 
Mahometanism, 246, &c. ; in relation 
to Eastern Christianity, 251, &c. 
Marcellus of Ancyra, 100, 231 
Maronites, 8 

Marriage of clergy allowed, 160 
Melitian controversy, 151, &c. 
Methodius, 298, 299 
Metrophanes of Byzantium, 100, 
169 

Metrophanes of Voronege, 394 
Metropolitan, rights of, 156 
Metropolitans of Russia, 314 
Milman, Dean, 21, 31, 70 
Milvian Bridge, battle of the, 182 
Missions, 32 ; of Constantinople, 

279 
Moldavia, 16 

Monasteries of Russia, 322 
Monasticism, 24, 25 
Monophysites, 7, 220 
Monothelites, 8, 22 
Moscow, 305 ; cathedral of the 

Assumption, 315, 387 ; cathedral 

of Archangel, 309 ; of S. Basil, 

321 ; Council of, 357 
Mouravieff, Andrew, his history, 

306 



PETER 

"NTESTOR of Kieff, 272, 283 
Nestorians, 5, 40, 251 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 61, 227 

Nicsea, city of, 77, 78 ; selection of,' 
83 ; its name, 85 ; its honours, 168 

Nicsea, Council of, its importance, 
18, 59, 63 ; its Oriental charac- 
ter, 56, 57 ; authorities for its 
history, 52, 74 ; occasion of, 77 ; 
date of, 85 ; numbers of, 88 ; 
characters of, 89, 90 ; places 01 
meeting, 91, 113 

Nicene Creed. See Creed of Nicaea 

Nicholas of Myra, 103, 124 

Nicolas of Plescow, 321 

Nicon, his appearance, 335 ; Patri- 
arch of Moscow, 336 ; his re- 
forms, 337, 338; history, 348; 
his death, 363 ; his tomb, 364 

Nijni-Novgorod, 34 

Nile, river, 4 

Novatians, 163, 165 



("PCUMENICAL Synod, 66 
V - L ' Organs, 27 
Origen, 23 

' Orthodox,' name of, 21 

Orthodox Sunday, 21 

Orthodoxy, Athanasius founder of, 

235 ; Nicene Creed bulwark of, 

173 



pAPACY, absence of in the 
East, 38 ; condemned by the 
East, 44 ; foundation of its power, 

193, !94 

Paphnutius, 95, 153, 160-163, 165 

Paul of Constantinople, 170 

Paul of Neocaesarea, 97 

Paulicians, sect of, 285 

Pelagianism, 24 

Persecution, 33, 379 

Peter the Great, of Russia, 367 ; 
his appearance, 368 ; his cha- 
racter, 369, &c. ; his connection 
with the Church, 373, &c. ; his 
death, 377, 378 



INDEX. 



421 



PETER 

Peter of Alexandria, 151, 231 
Petersburg, foundation of, 197, 370 
Philaret the Patriarch, 330 
Philaret the Metropolitan, 316, 
397 

Philip, S. , of Moscow, 318 
Philostorgius, 75 
Pictures, sacred, 292 
Plato, Archbishop, 395 
Poland, 20, 33 

Polish invasion of Russia, 327 
Pope, name of, 9, 14, 92 
Potammon, 95 
Prayers for the dead, 34 
Preaching in Mahometanism, 263 ; 

in Russia, 338 
Prester John, 5, 98 
Prideaux, Dean, 249 
Priesthood in Mahometanism, 265 
Procession of the Holy Ghost, 22, 

50, 5i, 235 
Purgatory, 34 

Pusey, Dr., on the Councils, 68 ; 
on the style of the Prophets, 259 



T) AITZEN in Hungary, 16 
Rascolniks, 382, &c. 

Reformation, 60, 201 ; how far 
followed in the East, 333 

Representative character of Coun- 
cils, 65 

Resignation in Mahometanism, 270 
Romanoff dynasty, election of, 330 
Romaic, 14 

Rome, antipathy of Constantine to, 
191, 197 

Russia, character of, 274 ; Church 
of, 17, 272, &c. ; foundation of, 
279 ; name of Russia, 281, 282 

Russian language, 299 



CABBATH, 10 

Sacrifices in Mahometanism, 
264 

Saints, veneration of, 266 



TROITZA 

Sclavonic race, 17, 280; language, 

299 
Secundus, 138 

Sergius, founder of the Troitza, 
326 

Servia, Church of, 16 

Seven Sleepers, 253 

Simeon Polotzky, 362 

Simeon Stylites, 26 

Sinai, convent of, 4 

Socrates, the historian, 75 

Sophia, S., 16, 289 

Sozomen, 75 

Spain, Church of, 60 

Spyridion, 101, 102, 108 

Standing in prayer, 27, 159 

Starovers in Russia, 382 

Stephen Yavorsky, 381 

Subscription to the Nicene Creed, 

135-137 ; to the Nicene Canons, 

163 ; to Creeds, 187 
Sun, worship of the, by Constantine, 

184 
Sunday, 184 
Sylvester, 104, 169, 194 



"TELEMACHUS, 25 

Temple, Dr., on the Creeds, 

144 

Thaddaeus, 5 

Thalia of Arius, 139 

Theodore II., the Czar, 362 

Theodoret, 72, 75 

Theologian, example of, in Atha- 

nasius, 234, &c. 
Theology, 22 

Theophanes Procopovitch, 377 
Theophilus the Goth, 104 
Thomas, S., Christians of, 6, 42 
Travelling to Councils, mode of, 
87 

Trent, Council of, 63, 83 

Troitza monastery, the, 324 ; siege 
of by the Poles, 329 ; refuge of 
Peter, 373 ; German philosophy 
in, 398 



422 INDEX. 

ULFILAS ZEYD 

T TLFILAS, 59, 104, 204, 279, Vladimir Monomachus, 300 

^ 298 Voskresensky, monastery of, 354 

Unction, extreme, 29 

^yALLACHIA, 16 

VICTOR and Vincentius, 104 
Vladimir the Great, 283, VEYD, 251 
290 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



